THE, 


LOST  CAUSE  REGAINED. 


BY    EDWARD    A.   POLLARD 

Author  of  "THE  LOST  CAUSE,"  &c. 


NEW  YORK  : 

G.  W.  CARLETON  &  Co.,  Publishers, 
London  :  S.  Low,  SON  &  Co. 


MDCCCLXVIII. 

'  6    T 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1868,  by 
G.  W.  CARLETON  &  CO. 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States,  for  the  Southern  District 
of  New-York. 


Stereotype  of 
Sunny  side  Preu 


"  Much  ostentation  vain  of  fleshly  arm 
And  fragile  arms,  much  instrument  of  war, 
Long  in  preparing,  soon  to  nothing  brought 
Before  mine  eyes  thou  hast  set ;   and  in  my  ear 
Vented  much  policy,  and  projects  deep 
Of  enemies,  of  aids,  battles  and  leagues, 
Plausible  to  the  world,  to  me  worth  naught, 
Means  I  must  use,  thou  say'st,  prediction  else 
Will  unpredict  and  fail  me  of  the  throne : 
My  time  I  told  thee  (and  that  time  for  thee 
Were  better  farthest  off)  is  not  yet  come ;  9 

"When  that  comes,  think  not  thou  to  find  me  slack 
On  my  part  aught  endeavouring,  or  to  need 
Thy  politic  maxims,  or  that  cumbersome 
Luggage  of  war  there  shown  me,  argument 
Of  human  weakness  rather  than  of  strength 

More  humane,  more  heavenly  first 
By  winning  words  to  conquer  willing  hearts, 
And  make  persuasion  do  the  work  of  fear. 
At  least  to  try  and  teach  the  erring  soul 
Not  wilfully  misdoing,  but  unware, 
Misled;  the  stubborn  only  to  subdue." 

Milton's   "  Paradise  Regained.9 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

INTRODUCTION, 13 


I.— REVIEW  OF   THE   LATE  WAR.— STATESMANSHIP  OP 

THE  SOUTH, 17 

A  question  at  the  front  of  the  Historical  review — How  far  President 
Davis'  mal-administration  was  responsible  for  the  results  of  the 
War— Lack  of  a  distinct  inspiration  in  the  South— Puerilities  of  Mr. 
Davis — His  first  design  to  take  personal  command  of  the  armies — 
How  it  was  defeated — An  incident  of  Manassas — Resignation  of 
Mr.  Hunter  from  the  Confederate  Cabinet — Richmond,  a  Chinese 
copy  of  Washington — Mr.  Seward,  the  arch-intelligence  of  the 
war — European  opinions  of  Mr.  Davis  and  his  Administration — A 
glance  at  Senator  Benjamin — Mr.  Davis  in  the  prophet's  robe — 
How  he  betrayed  and  lost  public  confidence — The  Emancipation 
Proclamation  not  an  act  of  statesmanship — The  two  notable 
triumphs  of  Northern  statesmanship — Inattention  of  the  South  to 
the  Anti-Slavery  measures  at  Washington — Peculiar  crime  of 
Negro  enlistments — A  reflection  on  the  Confederate  finances — 
Errour  of  the  Impressment  law — Analysis  of  the  opposition  to  Mr. 
Davis — Mr.  Toombs'  explanation — Wreck  of  the  Confederate 
transportation — Private  design  of  Mr.  Davis — John  M.  Daniel's 
commentary  on  Yankees — His  suspicion  of  Mr.  Davis — Curious 
mitigation  of  animosity  towards  the  North — Mr.  Stephens'  suppres 
sion  of  a  proposition  from  Abraham  Lincoln — Par  nobile  of  Georgia 
demagogues — Curious  delusion  of  the  South  as  to  the  recovery  of 
Slavery— The  African  Church  "  revivals " — A  remark  of  Mr. 
Hughes  of  Virginia— Historical  value  of  the  fact  that  the  South 
expected  generous  terms  of  restoration — What  Reconstruction  has 
revealed. 


8  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

II.— RECONSTRUCTION. 
1. — THE  DESTRUCTION"  OF  THE  WAR,  ,        ....    53 

Realization  of  its  losses  in  the  South— Political  "vivisection"— 
The  material  civilization  of  the  North,  the  conqueror — Its  charac 
teristic  warfare — A  curious  reminiscence  of  B.  F.  Butler — The 
"problem"  of  Reconstruction — President  Lincoln  ^in  Richmond- 
Afterthought  of  the  Republican  party. 

2. — HISTORY  OF  RECONSTRUCTION, Cl 

Need  of  a  popular  history  of  Reconstruction — Declaration  of  the 
.  objects  of  the  war  in  1861 — Practice  of  the  war  as  to  "  existing 
State  institutions  " — Cases  of  Tennessee  and  Louisiana — Three  con 
ditions  of  restoration — President  Lincoln  on  the  "white  basis" — 
Extraordinary  proposition  of  Congress  to  disfranchise  the  Negro — 
Reconstruction  policy  of  President  Johnson — Happy  condition  of  the 
country  under  it — Gen.  Grant's  testimony — Necessity  of  the  Repub 
lican  party — Its  revolutionary  sentiment  and  education — Six  months 
of  fruitless  debate  in  Congress — Violent  premise  of  Reconstruction — 
Dogma  of  forfeited  rights — Constitutional  Amendment,  No  14— * 
Hidden  designs  of  this  measure — Trap  of  Thaddeus  Stevens  on  I 
universal  suffrage — A  trick  on  Southern  opinion — President  Johnson's  * 
.  re-assurances  to  the  South — Reconstruction  law  of  March  2d,  1867 — 
President's  veto — Gen.  Grant's  interpretation  of  Reconstruction — 
'  History  of  the  Convention  elections  in  the  South — Remarkable  frauds 
in  the  registration — The  attempt  of  Congress  upon  the  President, 
as  part  of  the  Reconstruction  scheme — Analysis  of  this  attempt — 
Three  violent  measures — A  historical  remark  on  the  Tenure-of-office 
law — The  significance  of  impeachment  of  the  President — Its  logical 
identity  with  Reconstruction. 

3.— THREE  NOTABLE  ARGUMENTS, 85 

The  three  arguments  for  the  Reconstruction  scheme  of  Congress — 
Senator  Summer's  early  discovery  of  "dead  States" — A  clear  and 
fundamental  proposition — Decision  of  Justice  Sprague  of  Massachu 
setts — Estoppel  of  Congress  from  the  doctrine  of  State  forfeiture — 
Important  decision  of  Chief  Justice  Chase  on  the  North  Carolina 
circuit — The  argument  of  a  "conquered  country" — Extract  from  an 
English  statesman — "  Occupatio  bellica" — The  Constitutional  guar 
anty  of  a  republican  form  of  government — Senator  Summer's 
ignorance  of  history— Analysis  of  the  Constitution  with  respect 
to  suffrage— The  general  argument  for  universal  suffrage— Recent 


CONTENTS.  9 

PAGE 

declamations  of  Thaddeus  Stevens-A\.  logical  reply  to  them— 
Universal  suffrage,  as  meaning  Negro  suffrage  for  the  South— A 
brutal  mockery  of  republicanism.  > 

4. — A  SPECIAL  CONSOLATION",      ......  102 

The  Radical  party  vindicating  the  action  of  the  South  in  the  late 
war— A  new  interpretation  of  "  Copperheads  "—Speech  of  George 
H.  Pendleton— Two  wars  since  1860 :  one  for  the  Union,  the  other  for 
the  Constitution — President  Lincoln's  plea  of  necessity — Precedents 
of  1776  and  1812— Reasons  for  the  war  on  the  Constitution— Extract 
from  an  English  publicist — Identity  of  the  Two  Rebellions,  1776  and 
1861 — Extraordinary  declaration  of  President  Johnson — Prophecy  of 
the  "  lost  cause  regained." 


III.— THE  NEGRO  QUESTION. 
1.— RETROSPECT  OF  SLAVERY, 112 

The  political  question  of  the  Negro  resolved  to  one  of  natural 
history— Value  of  the  fact  of  the  specific  inferiourity  of  the  Negro — 
Its  importance  in  a  retrospect  of  the  sectional  controversy  and  war — 
The  tribute  of  history  to  Negro  Slavery  in  the  South — The  equality 
doctrine  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  so  far  from  condemning 
Slavery,  obtained  from  the  contact  and  influence  of  it — The  true  and 
only  defence  of  Slavery — Mistakes  of  Southern  politicians — Their 
appeal  to  the  Constitution  in  behalf  of  Slavery,  a  mean  and  infamous 
one — The  important  premise  of  the  entire  Slavery  Question,  the 
inferiourity  of  the  Negro. 

2. — INFERIOURITY  OF  THE  NGGRO, 118 

The  Scientific  Argument — Divisions  of  the  organic  world — Qualities 
of  a  "  Species  "—The  law  of  hybridity— The  Negro,  the  base  of  the 
generic  column  of  Man— No  genus  without  species— Limits  of  inter- 
nnion  between  Negroes  and  Whites — The  Octoroon  absolutely  sterile 
— Uniformity  of  the  type  of  the  Negro — The  excavations  of  Cham- 
pollion— The  Religious  Argument— Hypothesis  of  a  Divine  miracle 
with  reference  to'  the  Negro — The  Historic  Argument — The  Negro  hi 
Africa— Former  civilization  of  the  Nile— A  glance  at  Liberia— Tha 
idea  of  the  inferiourity  of  the  Negro,  one  of  benevolence. 
1* 


10  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

IV.— THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH. 
1. — CONDITION  AND  TEMPER  OP  THE  SOUTHERN  PEOPLE,     120 

The  black  thread  of  the  Negro  in  the  web  of  party— Division  of  the 
Anti-Slavery  party  into  Abolitionists  and  Negrophilists — Union  of 
these  two  parties  in  Reconstruction — A  new  and  enlarged  edition  of 
the  "Irrepressible  Conflict"— The  proposition  of  Negro  Suffrage 
scouted  in  the  North— Elections  of  1867  in  Ohio,  Minnesota,  Kansas 
and  New  Jersey — The  homogeneousness  and  political  identity  of  the 
nation  risked  by  the  Negro — A  curious  comparison  by  B.  F.  Butler 
between  the  Negro  and  an  unfortunate  beast — The  ballot,  a  fatal  gift 
for  the  Negro— The  "school"  of  Slavery— Extravagant  tribute  of  the 
Republican  party  to  the  beneficence  of  Slavery — The  Negro  obtained 
his  maximum  of  civilization  as  a  slave — Temper  of  the  Southern 
people  on  Negro  suffrage — The  theatrical  machinery  of  "  the  League  " 
— Solidity  of  the  Negro  organizations  in  the  South — The  elections  of 
1867  in  Virginia — A  war  of  races  imminent — The  prayer  of  the  South 
for  peace — Interesting  statement  of  Ex-Governor  Perry  of  South 
Carolina— The  feeling  of  desp  eration  in  the  South— Danger  of  another 
and  peculiar  rebellion  there — The  recent  farce  of  Restoration — The 
lesson  of  Fenianism — A  warning,  and  not  a  threat,  to  the  North. 

2.— "ALBA  STELLA," 154 

What  is  the  true  hope  of  the  South? — The  new  cause,  or  the  "lost 
cause "  revived — Abolition  destroyed  the  barrier  of  races,  the  true 
value  of  Slavery — TheJJwar,  as  merely  developing  the  ultimate  issue 
of  constitutional  liberty  and  of  our  political  traditions — "The  South 
Victorious" — The  lesson  of  patience — Pessimists  in  Congress— B.  F. 
Butler  and  Thaddeus  Stevens— Can  the  Constitution  be  recovered  ?— 
Survey  of  our  departure  from  it — Peculiar  conditions  for  judging 
American  history — An  incident  of  the  Philadelphia  Convention — The 
elections  of  1867— Power  of  public  opinion  in  our  political  system — 
"White,"  the  winning  word — Declaration  of  Gen.  Ewing — Congress 
translates  the  political  controversy  into  a  war  for  liberty — Two  parties 
left  by  the  war — The  fundamental  idea  of  President  Johnson's 
Administration — Review  of  it — Horace  Greeley  and  a  New  Jersey 
correspondent — Character  of  President  Johnson — His  extraordinary 
sacrifices  of  power  and  patronage — His  heroic  attitude  in  Impeach 
ment — A  bold  and  thrilling  avowal — Value  of  his  example  to  the 
South— The  nobility  of  Hope. 


CONTENTS.  11 

PAGB 

3.— -IMPEACHMENT, 177 

The  true  revolutionary  sense  of  the  proceeding  against  the  President- 
Its  relations  to  Reconstruction — Errour  of  the  Radical  party — Growth 
of  public  interest  in  Impeachment — Anticipations  of  "the  future 
historian"— Value  of  Impeachment  as  a  moral  exhibition. 


V.— DUTY  OF  THE  WHOLE  COUNTRY. 
1.— THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY, 185 

Three  duties  of  the  country — Summary  of  the  virtues  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party — Singular  attempt  of  the  Republican  party,  in  1861, 
to  appropriate  Democratic  principles — Its  return  to  Consolidation — 
Renewed  appeal  of  the  Democratic  party  to  "time-honoured 
principles." 

2. — THE  GROWTH  AND  GREATNESS  OF  AMERICA,        .        .  190 

Curious  prophecies  of  Adams  and  Jefferson— America  in  1776— 
Retrospect  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  Government — Two  pictures  at  Wash 
ington — Three  visions  of  an  empire  in  America — The  Alleghanies, 
the  Mississippi  River  and  the  Pacific  Ocean — Summary  of  the  present 
resources  of  the  country — A  lesson  of  the  late  war — Value  of  the 
physical  greatness  of  America,  as  a  source  of  patriotic  inspiration — 
A  new  interpretation  of  the  Union — The  peculiar  danger  of  a  revolu 
tion  against  the  Constitution — A  remarkable  fact  about  European 
Emigration— The  problem  of  America,  territorial  consolidation  (not 
political  consolidation) — President  Johnson's  tribute  to  the  Union. 

3. — THE  TRUE  NATURE  AND  SERVICE  OP  THE  UNION,        .  203 

The  political  novelty  of  the  American  Union — No  mission  apart 
from  the  States — A  curious  reflection  on  political  science — Thomas 
Jefferson's  idea  of  "ward  republics" — Political  decentralization  in' 
America— "The  Union  as  it  was,"  the  logical  expression  of  thes 
"Lost  Cause" — The  Union,  as  an  object  of  idolatry — Necessity  of  an, 
element  of  reverence  in  our  political  system — Consolidation  more) 
odious  than  Secession — Power  and  certainty  of  public  opinion  arising) 
out  of  the  nature  of  the  Union — A  new  value  of  State  institutions- 
Public  opinion,  the  supreme  ruler  and  the  last  arbiter. 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  author  of  the  present  work  wrote  a  history  of  the  recent 
war  under  the  title  of  "  The  Lost  Cause."  The  fitness  of  the 
title  was  singularly  complimented,  and  the  words  have  since 
been  permanently  incorporated  in  the  common  language  of  the 
people.  The  author  now  proposes  a  title  yet  more  fit  and 
happy  for  the  continuation  of  his  historical  work:  "The  Lost 
Cause  Regained."  He  does  not  hesitate  to  confess  that  a  pro 
longed  and  mature  reflection  has  given  him  larger  and  perhaps 
better  views  of  the  true  nature  of  the  recent  war,  and  especially 
of  its  consequences ;  and  he  has  risen  from  that  reflection  pro 
foundly  convinced  that  the  true  cause  fought  for  in  the  late 
war  has  not  been  "  lost  "  immeasurably  or  irrevocably,  but  is 
yet  in  a  condition  to  be  "regained"  by  the  South  on  ultimate 
issues  of  the  political  contest. 

It   is   scarcely  possible  in  any  introduction   to  recite  the 

whole  design  of  a  literary  work.     But  the  meaning  of  a  title, 

which  perhaps  piques  curiosity,  may  be  fixed  at  once  in  the 

mind  of  the  reader  by  the  following  brief  summary  of  propo- 

\  sitions : 

That  the  late  war  was  much  misunderstood  in  the  South,  and 
its  true  inspiration  thereby  lost  or  diminished,  through  the 
fallacy  that  Slavery  was  defended  as  a  property  tenure,  or  as  a 
peculiar  institution  of  labour  ;  when  the  true  ground  of  defence 
was  as  of  a  barrier  against  a  contention  and  war  of  races. 

That  the  greatest  value  of  Slavery  was  as  such  a  barrier. 

That  the  war  has  done  nothing  more  than  destroy  this  bar 
rier,  and  liberate  and  throw  upon  the  country  the  ultimate 
question  of  the  Negro. 


14 


INTRODUCTION. 


That  the  question  of  the  Negro  practically  couples  or  asso 
ciates  a  revolutionary  design  upon  the  Constitution;  and  that 
the  true  question  which  the  war  involved,  and  which  it  merely- 
liberated  for  greater  breadth  of  controversy  was  the  supremacy 
of  the  white  race,  and  along  with  it  the  preservation  of  the  po 
litical  traditions  of  the  country. 

That  in  contesting  this  cause  the  South  is  far  stronger  than 
in  any  former  contest,  and  is  supplied  with  new  aids  and 
inspirations. 

That  if  she  succeeds  to  the  extent  of  securing  the  supremacy 
of  the  white  man,  and  the  traditional  liberties  of  the  country 
— in  short,  to  the  extent  of  defeating  the  Radical  party — she 
really  triumphs  in  the  true  cause  of  the  war,  with  respect  to 
all  its  fundamental  and  vital  issues. 

That  this  triumph  is  at  the  loss  only  of  so  many  dollars  and 
cents  in  the  property  tenure  of  Slavery — the  $outh  still  re 
taining  the  Negro  as  a  labourer,  and  keeping  him  in  a  condition 
where  his  political  influence  is  as  indifferent  as  when  he  was  a 
slave ; — and  that  the  pecuniary  loss  is  utterly  insignificant,  as 
the  price  of  "  the  lost  cause  regained." 

These  propositions,  we  believe,  sum  a  novel,  and  even 
sublime  philosophy  on  the  political  questions  of  the  day. 
They  contain  the  true  hope  of  the  South  ;  they  suggest  a  new 
animation  of  a  contest  which  lingers  too  much  on  mere  partial 
and  contracted  issues.  The  great  difficulty  of  the  Southern 
mind  is,  and  always  has  been,  its  extreme  narrowness  on  the 
Negro  question.  This  intellectual  defect,  in  a  concern  so  im 
portant  and  peculiar,  is  especially  remarkable,  when  we  con 
sider  what  renown  the  South  has  obtained  for  her  schools  of 
statesmanship,  that  she  has  contributed  the  largest  and  best 
part  of  the  political  literature  of  the  country ;  nevertheless  it 
is  a  fact.  We  shall  see  further  on  in  these  pages  that  the 
best  of  Southern  statesmen  had  no  clear  ideas,  either  of  the 
nature  or  the  object  of  the  defence  of  Negro  Slavery ;  that  they 
were  incapable  of  conveying  distinct  inspirations  to  the  people 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

in  the  past  war,  which  failed  on  the  side  of  the  South  for  this 
reason  as  well  as  from  material  causes ;  and  that  in  the  politi 
cal  controversy  which  has  followed,  they  have  exhibited  a 
pitiful  want  of  due  conception  of  the  nature  and  magnitude  of 
the  contest.  It  is  indeed  mortifying  to  witness  the  present 
superficiality  of  the  Southern  mind,  and  to  read  the  commen 
taries  of  its  statesmanship  on  the  political  situation.  The/ 
reigning  Radicalism  at  Washington  is  lightly  treated  as  a 
wanton  and  ephemeral  display  of  party,  or,  in  the  most  serious 
mood  of  the  Southern  "  statesman,"  is  described  after  the 
words  of  Emerson:  "the  spirit  of  our  American  radicalism 
is  destructive  and  aimless — it  is  not  loving — it  has  no  ultimate 
ends — but  is  destructive  only  out  of  hatred  and  selfishness." 
The  common  mistake  is  in  regarding  as  a  wanton  and  aimless 
excitement,  without  "ultimate  ends,  "  as  an  extravagant  epi 
sode  of  party,  what  has  really  the  depth  and  significance  of  a 
great  revolution — ^a  revolution  of  unbroken  tenour  and  resolu 
tion,  proceeding  by  distinct  and  firm  steps  from  the  time  the 
Anti-Slavery  party  erected  its  first  starting-post  in  the  theory 
of  Consolidation,  and  made  its  first  movement  upon  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States. 

We  are  living  not  in  the  excitement  of  party,  but  in  the 
solemnity  of  a  Revolution.  We  are  aware  that  it  has  often 
happened  that  a  people  has  shown  but  little  cotemporary  real 
ization  of  the  events  of  a  Revolution  ;  history  is  full  of  pictures 
of  men  buying  and  selling,  and  perplexed  with  the  paltry  cares 
of  every-day  life  in  the  midst  of  great  political  changes  ;  and  it 
seems  indeed  to  be  an  unvarying  law  of  the  progress  of  human 
opinion,  that  the  true  proportions  of  the  crisis  through  which 
it  passes  become  visible  only  on  retrospect.  But  in  the  case 
we  are  considering,  this  popular  dullness,  especially  in  the 
South,  is  unusually  remarkable  and  excessively  curious.  The 
imperfect  appreciation  of  current  events,  and  the  degraded 
estimate  of  them  are  so  extreme  as  to  claim  a  particular  notice 
and  merit  a  signal  rebuke. 


16  INTRODUCTION. 

It  is  to  develope  the  significance  of  the  present  revolution  in 
the  political  affairs  of  America ;  to  pass  in  brief  review  its 
history  ;  to  show  its  coherent  and  dramatic  design  on  the  twin 
subjects  of  Reconstruction  and  Negrophilism  ;  to  deduce  from 
all  a  new  and  animating  hope  for  the  South,  and  to  point  the 
path  to  the  victory  of  the  Constitution,  that  we  have  designed 
this  work. 

If  we  may  claim  any  particular  merit  for  it,  it  will  be  found 
rather  in  the  suggestive  than  in  the  exhaustive  treatment  of 
the  subject.  It  is  not  a  modest  claim  we  make.  We  shall 
consider,  indeed,  that  we  have  attained  some  literary  excel 
lence,  when  we  have  accomplished  what  is  really  the  superiour 
office  of  the  writer — to  suggest  rather  than  to  convey  all  the 
thoughts  which  attach  to  his  subject. 

May,  1868. 


I. 

REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

STATESMANSHIP    OF    THE    SOUTH. 

A  question  at  the  front  of  the  Historical  review— How  far  President  Davis'  mal-adminia* 
tration  was  responsible  for  the  results  of  the  War — Lack  of  a  distinct  inspiration  in  the 
South — Puerilities  of  Mr.  Davis — His  first  design  to  take  personal  command  ot  the 
armies — How  it  was  defeated — An  incident  of  Manassas — Resignation  of  Mr.  Hunter 
from  the  Confederate  Cabinet — Richmond,  a  Chinese  copy  of  Washington — Mr- 
Seward,  the  arch-intelligence  of  the  war — European  opinions  of  Mr.  Davis  and  his 
Administration — A  glance  at  Senator  Benjamin — Mr.  Davis  in  the  prophet's  robe — 
How  he  betrayed  and  lost  public  confidence — The  Emancipation  Proclamation  not 
an  act  of  statesmanship — The  two  notable  triumphs  of  Northern  statesmanship — In 
attention  of  the  South  to  the  Anti-Slavery  measures  at  Washington— Peculiar  crime 
of  Negro  enlistments — A  reflection  on  the  Confederate  finances — Errour  of  the  Im," 
pressment  law — Analysis  of  the  opposition  to  Mr.  Davis — Mr.  Toombs'  explana 
tion—Wreck  of  the  Confederate  transportation— Private  design  of  Mr.  Davis 
— John  M.  Daniel's  commentary  on  Yankees — His  suspicion  of  Mr.  Davis — Curioug 
mitigation  of  animosity  towards  the  North — Mr.  Stephens'  suppression  of  a  propo 
sition  from  Abraham  Lincoln — Par  nobile  of  Georgia  demagogues — Curious  delu 
sion  of  the  South  as  to  the  recovery  of  Slavery — The  African  Church  "  revivals  " — 
A  remark  of  Mr.  Hughes  of  Virginia— Historical  value  of  the  fact  that  the  South 
expected  generous  terms  of  restoration — What  Reconstruction  has  revealed. 

He  who  justly  and  intelligently  reviews  the  late  war  from 
the  eminence  of  History  finds  at  the  front  the  serious  and  in 
teresting  question  : — how  far  its  results  are  to  he  ascribed  to 
the  relative  personal  administrations  of  the  two  Governments. 
The  author  has  an  opinion,  strengthened  and  assured  by  time, 
and  of  which  he  will  probably  never  be  divested,  that  the 
South  should  have  won  in  the  past  contest  by  every  rule  of 
historical  experience,  and  according  to  every  method  of  a 


18  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

priori  argument,  if  the  administration  of  her  affairs  had  been 
good,  or  even  equal  to  her  enemy's ;  and  that  she  essentially 
failed  for  want  of  a  statesmanship  competent  to  energize  her 
resources,  and  especially  to  furnish  her  people  a  distinct  and 
well-defined  inspiration  to  sustain  their  arms.  The  test  of 
such  belief  is  obviously  this  :  that  at  the  time  of  the  surrender 
of  the  Confederate  armies,  the  South  was  still  capable  of  defen 
sive  warfare,  if  there  had  been  a  strong  popular  will  to  employ 
all  her  resources — the  want  being,  not  of  material,  but  of  ani 
mation.  There  was  still  population  enough  to  furnish  an 
army  of  several  hundred  thousand  men  ;  there  were  accumula 
tions  of  subsistence,  remote  and  unavailable  only  through  mis 
management,  which,  by  proper  exertions,  might  have  been 
brought  into  use ;  there  were  parts  of  the  country  immensely 
defended  by  nature,  where  armies  had  not  yet  penetrated ;  and 
yet,  in  direct  view  of  these  resources,  we  find  a  war  tamely  ex 
piring,  without  either  of  those  final  experiences  almost  uniform 
in  history — a  last  convulsive  effort  or  a  resort  from  the  open 
field  to  such  strong-holds  as  nature  or  art  have  supplied.  We 
know  of  no  other  instance  in  modern  history  where  more  than 
one  hundred  thousand  men  have  laid  down  their  arms  in  open 
fields  to  an  enemy,  and  have  ceased  from  war  with  a  resolution 
so  sudden  and  complete. 

Those  who  have  known  Mr.  Davis  well — some  of  them  com 
panions  of  his  retreat  from  Richmond — testify  that  his  last, 
bitterest  thought  was  that  the  South  was  abandoning  the  war 
without  having  exhausted  her  resources.  The  unhappy  fugi 
tive  President  saw  plainly  means  to  continue  the  war  ;  but  it 
was  the  vision  of  Tantalus.  He  could  not  command  these 
means  ;  his  power  to  animate  was  gone  ;  he  could  no  longer 
communicate  inspiration  to  the  people,  and  in  this  moment  of 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR.  19 

anguish — this  moral  paralysis — he  doubtless  realized  how  his 
inisgovernment  had  squandered  public  confidence,  and  how 
terribly  he  was  repaid.  It  is  said  his  pale  lips  writhed  and  his 
steps  tottered,  when,  at  Abbeville,  South  Carolina,  he  made 
his  last  appeal  to  the  five  brigade  commanders  left  with  him, 
and  they  received  it  in  such  silence  as  told  him  there  was  only 
a  response  of  pity  in  their  breast.  His  faculty  of  inspiration 
was  gone.  He  might  have  known  it  when,  two  months  before 
this,  his  speech  at  the  African  Church,  in  Richmond,  adopting 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Burroughs'  evangel,  that  "  God  had  put  a  hook 
in  Sherman's  nose,  and  was  leading  him  to  destruction,"  fell 
still-born  on  the  multitude,  and  was  so  neglected  that  but  a 
single  newspaper  in  Richmond  reported  it,  and  that  only  to 
make  it  the  text  of  reproof.  He  might  have  known  it  when, 
fleeing  the  Confederate  capital  in  a  haste  so  indecent  as  to 
leave  no  souvenir  of  his  departure — not  a  word  of  farewell — he 
published  a  proclamation  at  Danville  that  no  one  noticed,  and 
that  was  never  even  read,  after  a  respectful  custom,  for  the 
information  of  the  army.  If  Mr.  Davis  had  not  been  blinded 
by  vanity,  if  his  eyes  had  not  been  sealed  by  the  crudest  con 
ceits,  he  would  have  realized  long  before  he  did,  that  his  power 
to  console  and  animate  the  people  was  utterly  gone,  and  with  it 
every  essential  and  logical  hope  of  the  war. 

It  was,  as  we  believe,  on  account  of  a  deficiency  of  states 
manship  in  the  South  that  the  inspiration  of  the  war  was  com 
pletely  lost  in  its  last  stages,  and  that  it  expired  with  such  re 
markable  tameness.  It  is  notorious  that  the  people  of  the 
South  never  understood  exactly  for  what  they  were  fighting, 
and  that  on  this  subject  they  received  only  the  most  confused 
instruction  from  their  leaders.  Some  declared  that  the  conten 
tion  was  for  slavery  ;  others  that  it  was  for  independence  ;  and 


20  REVIEW  OP  THE  LATE  WAR. 

others  again  that  it  was  for  constitutional  liberty,  in  which  the 
South  did  nothing  more  than  represent  the  traditions  of  the  old 
Government.  All  these  explanations  were  given  at  various 
times,  and  Mr.  Davis  exchanged  them  as  convenience  served. 
If,  indeed,  he  had  believed  (as  was  his  last  confession)  that  the 
prize  was  not  slavery,  but  independence  and  liberty,  it  would 
have  been  severely  logical  to  have  sacrificed  the  former — to 
have  fought  the  war  on  the  basis  of  the  emancipation  of  the 
Negro — and  thus  have  assured  one  of  the  most  splendid  suc 
cesses  of  statesmanship  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  But  Mr 
Davis  had  neither  the  prescience  nor  nerve  for  such  a  magnifi 
cent  stroke  of  genius ;  and  the  war  suffering  for  a  distinct 
object  necessarily  lost  that  inspiration  which  was  the  condition 
of  endurance  and  the  vital  element  of  success. 

This,  coupled  with  another  notable  cause  of  demoralization, 
we  believe  to  be  the  true  and  profound  explanation  of  the  war 
on  the  Southern  side.'  The  other  cause  (to  be  noticed  hereaf 
ter  with  some  detail)  was  an  undue  expectation  of  generosity 
from  the  enemy,  that  obviously  hastened  ths  act  of  submission, 
and  contributed  to  the  tameness  with  which  that  act  was  ulti 
mately  performed.  But  our  present  reflection  is  on  that  loose 
conduct  of  affairs  in  the  South,  which  not  only  brought  the 
Administration  of  Mr.  Davis  into  contempt,  which  not  only 
gave  occasions  of  personal  recrimination,  but  slowly  and  sadly 
reduced  the  spirit  of  the  people  until  it  sunk  to  an  almost 
abject  submission. 

The  extreme  exhibition  of  misgovernment  which  the  South 
made  in  the  contest,  and  her  woeful  lack  of  statesmanship,  are 
curious  in  consideration  of  the  fact  that  this  part  of  the  coun 
try  had  hitherto  been  so  much  renowned  for  political  science. 
But  there  is  really  no  inconsistency  here.  The  excellence  of 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR.  21 

the  Southern  mind  was  in  the  abstract  science  of  politics — 
rather  a  philosophical  accomplishment  than  a  practical  virtue. 
The  character  of  Jefferson  Davis  illustrates  the  difference 
with  singular  exactness.  No  man  spoke  in  the  United  States 
Senate  with  greater  weight  than  he  on  questions  of  constitutional 
law  and  all  our  political  traditions ;  he  was  ready  and  exact  in 
historical  illustration  ;  he  showed  both  learning  and  acumen  in 
debate ;  he  was  incontestably  one  of  the  best  political  scholars 
of  his  time ;  and  yet,  when  he  came  to  be  President  of  the  South 
ern  Confederacy,  it  was  found  that  in  many  matters  of  practi 
cal  judgment  he  was  as  ignorant  as  a  child,  and  there  might  bo 
gathered  from  his  administration  a  stock  of  puerilities  to 
amuse  the  world. 

What  shall  we  say  of  those  legislative  licences  recommen 
ded  by  Mr.  Davis,  which  nearly  disbanded  the  Confederate 
armies  at  the  conclusion  of  the  first  year  of  the  war ;  of  that 
financial  acuteness  which,  on  a  particular  day,  repudiated  one 
third  of  the  currency ;  of  that  astute  policy  which  refused  to 
trade  cotton  for  bread  and  meat,  and  hugged  it  to  the  bosom 
of  the  South  as  the  merest  stuffing  of  vanity  ;  of  those  orders 
of  the  commissariat  not  to  bring  supplies  into  the  cities,  but 
to  leave  them  in  the  open  country,  inviting  the  enemy's  rapa 
city  ;  of  those  subscriptions  of  scrap-iron  to  build  gun-boats, 
and  of  silver  plate  to  relieve  the  distress  of  the  Treasury  ?  In 
the  endeavours  of  the  Government  to  meet  great  public  necessi 
ties  there  were  sometimes  exhibitions  of  stark,  innocent  pue 
rility  almost  surpassing  belief.  John  M.  Daniel  used  to  laugh 
over  pious  Secretary  Memminger's  idea  of  replenishing  the 
Treasury  by  collection  bags  suspended  from  poles  in  the 
churches  ;  but  the  expedient  was  scarcely  more  trifling  than  a 
public  call  of  the  Government  for  the  people  to  cast  their  jew- 


22  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

elry  into  the  Treasury,  to  assist  in  the  payment  of  the  publics 
debt.  What  ever  became  of  these  contributions  we  wonder. 
There  were  regularly  published  lists  of  them  to  serve  as  in 
centives  to  patriotism ;  but  whether  the  spoons,  butter-dishes, 
finger-rings,  and  various  baubles  of  female  vanity  ever  found  a 
market,  and  for  what  sort  of  money,  is  one  of  the  historical 
mysteries  of  the  "  Lost  Cause." 

We  do  not  believe  it  is  generally  known  that  in  the  early  part 
of  the  war  Mr.  Davis  designed  turning  over  his  civil  author 
ity  to  Vice  President  Stephens,  and  taking  a  military  com 
mand  in  the  field.  His  first  intention  was  to  take  personal 
command  of  the  forces  west  of  the  Alleghanies.  The  advent  of 
General  A.  S.  Johnston,  in  September  1861, afterwards  supplied 
an  able  and  popular  commander  for  the  great  western  wing  of 
the  war.  But  the  chief  difficulty  that  defeated  Mr.  Davis' 
intention  of  taking  the  field  was  want  of  confidence  in 
Alexander  H.  Stephens  as  his  substitute  in  the  civil  adminis 
tration,  and  a  remarkable  backwardness  of  this  person  to 
accept  any  of  the  responsibilities  of  the  war. 

This  political  indisposition  of  Mr.  Stephens  was  afterwards 
the  subject  of  much  remark,  and  there  were  many  who  consid 
ered  him  a  masked  and  suspicious  figure  in  the  war.  He 
shunned  Eichmond ;  and  his  proper  post  of  duty  as  presiding 
officer  of  the  Senate  was  constantly  filled  by  substitutes. 
This  dereliction  was  severely  commented  upon ;  and  Mr. 
Stephens'  former  habits  of  excessive  loquacity  were  said  to 
have  been  exchanged  for  a,  cold,  sullen  silence,  which  he  main 
tained  for  a  long  time  in  his  retreat  in  Georgia.  The  expla 
nation  of  his  appointment  as  a  commissioner  to  meet  Lin 
coln  and  Seward  at  Fortress  Monroe  in  1865,  was  the  belief 
of  certain  members  of  Congress  that  his  equivocal  charac- 


REVIEW  OP  THE  LATE  WAR.  23 

ter  in  the  war  would  make  him  useful  as  an  instrument  of 
pacification,  and  recommend  him  to  Northern  confidence. 
He  was  by  no  means  the  choice  of  Mr.  Davis  for  the  mis 
sion  ;  and  when  he  was  imposed  upon  the  President  by  the 
pressure  of  a  delegation  from  Congress,  the  two  were  scarcely 
on  speaking  terms,  and  the  necessary  interview  was  of  the 
most  cavalier  description.  "  I  know  of  no  person  more  fit  for 
the  mission,"  said  Mr.  Davis  as  he  extended  the  appointment  to 
Stephens  ;  but  as  the  Confederate  President  had  been  very 
free  to  say  before  that  it  was  a  shameful,  cowardly  experiment 
on  Northern  sentiment,  in  which  he  only  sought  to  satisfy  pop 
ular  clamour,  the  compliment  could  scarcely  be  taken  without 
a  perception  of  its  sarcasm.  When  Mr.  Stephens  returned,  a 
most  earnest  effort  was  made  to  reanimate  the  people  in  view 
of  the  results  of  the  mission  ;  delegations  and  particular  persons 
sought  him,  entreating  him  to  take  part  in  the  famous  African 
Church  "  revival."  "  Only  speak  ten  words  to  let  the  people 
know  where  you  are,"  they  pleaded;  but  Mr.  Stephens  only 
replied  with  a  wan  smile  and  a  reference  to  his  bodily  infirmi 
ties,  though,  despite  the  latter,  he  considered  himself  able  to 
travel  over  all  the  ruins  of  broken  railroads  and  burnt  bridges 
to  Georgia,  slipping  away  from  Richmond  between  two  days, 
and  avoiding  its  catastrophe. 

We  must  consider  it  unfortunate  that  Mr.  Davis  did  not  exe 
cute  his  intention  of  taking  the  field,  provided  his  civil  author 
ity  could  have  been  bestowed  upon  a  worthy  person.  We 
have  conjectured  that  his  genius  (using  the  word  in  its  low 
sense  of  any  disposition  of  mind)  was  rather  military  than  po 
litical  ;  and  in  any  event  the  country  would  have  had  the  ad 
vantage  of  an  experiment  in  one  direction,  where  the  other 
was  only  assured  and  complete  failure.  Mr.  Davis  had  through- 


24  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

out  the  war  a  remarkable  ambition  to  be  considered  as  the  di 
rector  of  its  arms  rather  than  its  statesman ;  and  hence  much 
of  his  military  pragmatism.  It  was  understood  that  he  would 
have  commanded  at  Manassas  and  that  he  hastened  to  the  field 
for  that  purpose,  arriving,  however,  only  in  time  to  witness  the 
complete  discomfiture  of  the  enemy.  Every  newspaper  in  the 
South  had  it  from  the  agent  of  the  Associated  Press  that  he 
"  commanded  the  centre  "  on  that  day,  and  Mr.  Davis  never 
contradicted  the  pleasant  report,  although  returning  to  Rich 
mond,  and  speaking  from  the  balcony  of  the  Spotswood  House, 
he  gave  otherwise  detailed  and  correct  information  of  the  en- 
gagment. 

(5f  this  imperfect  military  adventure  of  the  ConfederatePresi- 
dent,  there  is  an  incident  that  should  be  related  to  his  credit. 
When  he  had  reached  Manassas  Junction,  and  was  galloping 
from  the  railroad  station  towards  the  volume  of  fire,  a  swarm 
of  stragglers  gave  the  idea  of  defeat,  he  was  tpldthat  his  army 
was  beaten,  and  some  one  suggested  that  he  should  consult  his 
own  personal  safety. 

"  No,"  replied  the  President,  speaking  to  his  brother,  who 
rode  by  his  side  ;  "  if  it  is  so,  the  greater  necessity  that  we  should 
be  at  the  front  and  share  with  our  brave  fellows  the  misfortune 
of  the  day." 

It  was  a  spirited,  generous  remark,  characteristic  of  Mr. 
Davis ;  for  whatever  his  faults,  no  one  ever  doubted  that  he 
was  the  most  courageous  of  men,  prompt  to  assume  any  person 
al  peril — a  true  son  in  this  respect,  of  "the  soldier  State  of 
Mississippi."  A  few  days  before  this  he  had  promised  to  lead 
the  Hampton  Legion  into  battle,  and,  hinting  at  his  intention 
of  taking  the  field,  had  declared  he  would  be  where  "  the  last 
line  of  bayonets  was  leveled."  The  war  had  no  such  drama- 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR.  25 

tic  conclusion ;  but  we  believe  that  Mr.  Davis  would  have  been 
in  the  foreground  and  in  heroic  attitude,  if  he  had  persuaded 
the  remnants  of  the  army  left  him  at  Abbeville,  South  Carolina, 
in  April,  1865,  to  make  that  last  effort  which  he  implored  al 
most  to  the  point  of  tears. 

The  first  serious  wound  to  public  confidence  in  Mr.  Davis' 
administration  was  the  resignation  of  Mr.  Hunter  from  his 
Cabinet.  This  latter  gentleman  was  by  far  the  most  powerful 
and  popular  intellect  that  had  been  called  to  the  counsel  and 
support  of  the  new  administration.  He  had  a  national  repu 
tation  ;  his  rough,  seamed  face,  yet  lighted  up  with  splendid 
eyes,  had  long  been  familiar  in  public  life ;  he  had  measured 
his  sturdy  intellect  with  the  most  famous  statesmen  of  his  day; 
he  was  singularly  unostentatious,  and  yet  a  man  of  profound 
and  extensive  learning,  comprehending  accomplishments  the 
most  elegant  and  scholarly.  He  was  an  excellent  type  of  the 
plain,  personal  figure  of  the  old  Virginia  politician,  united 
with  erudition  surprising  the  casual  observer  and  confounding 
the  critic  who  ventured  upon  a  flippant  treatment  of  the  man 
who  appeared  so  simple  and  ordinary.  Indeed  we  know  of  no 
living  man  in  the  South  who  yet  compares  with  Mr.  Hunter  in 
illustrating  the  old  and  honoured  race  of  Southern  statesmen. 
He  was  placed  in  Mr.  Davis'  Cabinet  as  a  compliment  to 
Virginia,  and  w^s  the  only  man  who  brought  to  it  any  remark 
able  reputation. 

Memrninger  was  a  curiosity — a  weak  example  of  the  pious 
statesman;  Mallory  had  not  even  the  dignity  of  private  life  to 
support  him,  and  the  name  of  "  the  old  wharf  rat  "  was  sug 
gestive  of  predatory  excursions;  Reagan  had  some  ability, 
but  all  the  faults  in  coarseness  and  conceit  of  "  self-educated 
men,"  a  Texan  lawyer  who  had  read  Blackstone  when  he  was 

"2 


26  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

a  wagon-master,  spelling  out  the  difficult  words  by  camp-fires 
and  the  illumination  of  pine-knots  ;  Benjamin,  who  ultimately 
took  Mr.  Hunter's  place,  was  facile,  a  rapid  and  adroit  under- 
clerk,  despatching  vast  amounts  of  routine  business,  but  utter 
ly  incapable  in  the  higher  administration  of  public  affairs. 
This  company  was  not  very  pleasant  or  honourable  to  Mr.  Hun 
ter  ;  but  the  immediate  occasion  of  his  resignation  from  the  Cab 
inet  was  a  breach  with  Mr.  Davis. 

It  was  in  one  of  the  consultations  of  the  Cabinet,  just  after 
the  battle  of  Manassas,  that  Mr.  Hunter  ventured  to  express 
an  opinion  on  the  conduct  of  the  war.  Mr.  Davis  turned 
sharply  upon  him  and  remarked:  "Mr.  Hunter,  you  are 
Secretary  of  State,  and  when  information  is  wanted  of  that 
particular  department,  it  will  be  time  for  you  to  speak." 
Probably  the  Confederate  President  quickly  regretted  the 
remark,  for  he  immediately  attempted  to  take  the  edge  off  it 
by  a  smiling  and  jocose  allusion.  But  Mr.  Hunter  showed 
his  resentment  on  the  spot,  and  the  next  day  sent  in  his  resig 
nation.  It  was  the  first  advertisement  to  the  public  of  Mr. 
Davis'  autocratic  temper,  and  his  characteristic,  fatal  disposi 
tion  to  repel,  as  from  a  position  of  rivalry,  the  company  and 
support  of  other  leading  men  in  the  country. 

He  had,  at  first,  a  very  servile  aid  in  the  Provisional 
Congress,  a  miserable  creature  of  "conventions"  brought  to 
Piichmond  from  Montgomery,  a  legislative  burlesque.  But  in 
the  Congresses  that  succeeded  under  the  "regular"  Grovern- 
mcnt,  Mr.  Davis  gradually  lost  their  confidence,-  and  offended 
the  few  personal  friendships  that  he  had  in  the  legislative  body. 
He  did  this  particularly  by  refusing  his  confidence  to  Congress  in 
the  most  unprecedented  way;  and  we  are  assured  of  the  actual 
fact  that  he  refused,  even  in  secret  session,  to  communicate 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR.  27 

what  had  been  done  in  the  foreign  relations  of  the  Confederacy. 
He  considered  the  subject  of  such  exclusive,  delicate  confidence, 
that  he  would  not  have  Congress  to  participate  in  it ;  he  claim 
ed  the  field  of  diplomacy  as  entirely  his  own  ;  he  sent  off  the 
Clay-Thompson  commission  without  Congress  knowing  a  word 
about  it ;  and  the  fruits  of  the  diplomacy  that  affected  such 
severe  and  grand  secrecy  were  all  failures  and  absurdities 
without  end.  In  the  last  periods  of  the  war  the  President 
had  got  to  be  so  entirely  without  influence,  such  an  obvious 
failure,  that  his  administration  was  almost  taken  out  of  his 
hands,  unwillingly  by  Gen.  Lee,  but  readily  enough  by  Congress, 
which  at  last  assumed  the  task  of  negotiation  with  the  enemy, 
or  drove  the  President,  in  this  respect  at  least,  to  be  the  in 
strument  of -its  will. 

A  strong  characteristic,  running  through  the  whole  Govern 
ment  of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  and  pervading  all  its  legis 
lation,  was  a  feeble  but  persistent  echo  to  Washington.  His 
tory  will  remark  this  as  one  of  the  most  curious  circumstances 
of  the  war.  A  Government  in  the  position  of  a  seceder,  if  not 
of  a  rebel,  was  so  utterly  destitute  of  statesmanship,  so  devoid 
of  intellectual  force  and  originality,  as  to  follow  with  halting 
and  apish  imitations  upon  the  Government  it  had  forsaken  and 
denounced.  The  whole  course  of  Mr.  Davis'  administration 
was  to  borrow  examples  from  Washington,  and  even  to  import 
the  men  from  there  to  assist  in  the  various  departments.  Puch- 
mond  was  a  Chinese  copy  of  Washington,  with  all  its  patches 
of  departments  and  bureaus,  with  all  its  stripes  of  "  red  tape,  " 
with  all  its  traditions  of  official -circumlocution,  with  all  its 
ancient  stenches  of  the  lobby  and  back-stairs.  We  are  aware 
that  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  explain  this  conformity  as 
an  ingenious  design  of  Mr.  Davis  to  conciliate  public  opinion 


28  EEVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

in  the  North ;  but  the  true  explanation  is  intellectual  poverty. 
It  is  an  unquestionable  fact  that  when  Mr.  Davis  commenced 
the  war  from  the  Montgomery  Convention,  he  entertained  the 
hope  of  the  accession  of  some  of  the  Northern  States,  and, 
therefore,  the  new  government  was  made  so  exact  a  copy  of  the 
old,  tc  solicit  all  possible  prejudices  in  its  favour.  But  when 
this  hope  disappeared,  as  it  soon  did,  what  excuse  was  there, 
not  only  for  continuing  the  servile  copy  to  the  lowest  details. 
in  the  form  of  the  government,  but  for  conducting  the  practical 
administration  of  all  affairs  as  a  low  and  feeble  counterpart  to 
whatever  was  done  in  Washington  ?  It  is  notorious  that  all 
the  suggestions  of  legislation  in  the  Provisional  Congress, 
which  was  easily  ruled  by  Mr.  Davis,  were  borrowed  from 
"Washington,  and  yet  reproduced  with  a  faintness  that  made 
the  imitation  contemptible. 

The  Federal  Government  multiplied  calls  for  volunteers 
after  the  battle  of  Manassas;  the  Richmond  Congress  replied 
by  increasing  the  Confederate  army  to  "four  hundred  thousand 
men, "  whose  only  existence  was  on  paper.  The  Federal 
Government  tried  the  rigour  of  confiscations ;  the  echo  in  Rich 
mond  was  a  "  sequestration  "  law  that  did  not  actually  produce 
two  milions  of  dollars.  The  Federal  Government  issued  im 
mense  volumes  of  paper  money ;  the  Richmond  Government 
replied  by  reckless  issues,  (Mr.  Davis  assuring  Congress  there 
was  not  a  particle  of  risk,  as  the  eight  per  cent  bonds  would 
absorb  them,)  and  produced  an  immitation  of  the  Northern 
financial  system;  with  the  fatal  exception  that  the  Treasury 
notes  were  not  made  "legal  tenders." 

It  was  a  subject  of  frequent  painful  remark  how  basely  the 
Confederate  Government  followed  on  the  heels  of  that  at  Wash 
ington.  It  was  a  standing  subject  of  reproach  in  the  columns 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR.  29 

of  the  Richmond  Examiner,  and  the  whole  intelligence  of  the 
South  severely  but  ineffectually  resented  it.  Even  the  forms 
of  all  proceedings  in  the  departments  were  imported  from  Wash 
ington,  and  not  a  single  original  military  text-book  was  used 
to  any  extent  in  the  Southern  armies.  Mr.  Davis  was  incrusted 
with  the  old  prejudices  he  had  obtained  in  the  War  Office  at 
Washington,  and  plodded  in  all  the  worn  routines  that  had  been 
customary  in  his  former  political  life.  He  invented  nothing, 
not  even  in  the  least  ceremony  or  detail  of  the  Government, 
satisfied  with  a  mechanical,  barren  imitation  of  what  he  had 
learned  in  Washington. 

We  shall,  hearafter,  remark  on  the  relative  statesmanship 
of  the  North,  and  shall  proceed,  after  a  certain  method,  to 
dispose  of  our  subject.  But  it  is  not  inconvenient  here  to 
notice  the  estimates  entertained  in  the  South  of  the  various 
leading  men  in  the  North,  and  in  what  proportions  were 
ascribed  the  statesmanship  that  directed  the  war.  In  this 
respect  Mr.  Seward  was  considered  beyond  all  comparison  the 
arch-intelligence  of  the  war,  the  man  most  feared  by  the 
people  of  the  South,  and  hence,  perhaps,  most  abused  by  them. 
The  names  even  of  the  other  members  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
Cabinet  were  scarcely  known  in  the  South.  The  Northern 
President  himself  was  considered  only  as  an  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  the  wily  Secretary  of  State,  who  became  the  imperso 
nation  to  the  people  of  the  South  of  all  the  bad  wisdom  and 
baffling  ingenuities  to  defeat  and  plague  their  cause.  Intelli 
gent  men  in  Richmond  were  very  ready  to  admit  that  Mr. 
Seward's  vulgar  prophecy  of  a  "  sixty  days' war  "  was  not  a 
sincere  conviction  of  his  able  mind,  but  was  ingeniously  designed 
to  belittle  the  war  in  European  estimation  and  to  entice 
volunteers.  Thus  while  the  newspapers,  for  popular  effect, 


30  REVIEW  OP  THE  LATE  WAR. 

ridiculed  the  prophecy,  discerning  men  were  vexed  at  the 
success  of  the  game,  and  saw  the  ground  of  "foreign  recognition" 
steadily  undermined  and  cut  from  under  their  feet.  It  is  now 
plain  enough  that  in  the  single  part  of  preventing  European 
recognition  of  the  Confederacy,  Mr.  Seward  made  a  contribu 
tion  to  the  success  of  the  North  far  greater  than  "emancipa 
tion  proclamations  "  or  any  other  act  of  statesmanship,  and  ad 
ministered  a  vital  blow  to  the  hopes  of  the  South.  The  Rich 
mond  newspapers  always  affected  to  be  careless  of  recognition ; 
but  it  was  a  thorough  affectation ;  and  to  the  last  Mr.  Davis  did 
not  cease  his  anxiety  or  quit  his  hopes  of  interference  in  some 
shape  from  the  European  powers.  There  was  was  an  intelligent 
argument  and  a  strong  belief  that  these  Powers  had  abstained 
from  interference  only  on  conviction  that  the  South  was  able 
to  accomplish  her  independence  unaided  and  without  complicat 
ing  them,  and  that  when  they  were  rid  of  this  conviction,  and 
the  war  had  plainly  progressed  to  extremity,  they  would  be 
prompt  to  intervene  to  save  a  conclusion  supposed  to  be  so 
disastrous  to  their  interests  as  the  recovery  of  the  American 
Union,  with  enlarged  prestige  and  power  to  enforce  its  demands 
against  the  foreign  nations  and  to  prosecute  its  mission 
against  European  monarchy.  The  argument  was  plausible 
and  captivating ;  and  on  the  fall  of  Richmond  there  was  a 
common  report  that  the  sudden  conclusion  of  the  war  had  taken 
England,  and  especially  France,  by  surprise,  and  that  the 
latter  was  prepared  to  intervene,  had  she  known  the  desperation 
of  the  case.  This  belief  of  a  contretemps  still  resides  in  many 
minds,  and  has,  for  a  long  time,  been  a  subject  of  melancholy 
gossip  among  those  who  mourn  the  defeat  of  the  South. 

It  is  curious  what  undue  and  flattering  opinions  Mr.  Davis 
obtained  from  European  countries,  and  especially  from  England. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR.  31 

Those  to  whom  he  ever  confided  his  personal  feelings  testify 
that  he  was  especially  pleased  and  inflated  by  this  foreign  praise, 
and  that  he  valued  it  more  than  the  affections  of  his  country 
men.  He  is*  said  to  have  written  his  most  ambitious  State 
papers  for  European  effect,  and  to  have  taken  especial  delight 
in  that  singular  delusion  of  the  English  and  French  journals 
which  long  persisted  in  regarding  him  as  the  military  hero  of 
the  war,  the  inspirer  of  campaigns,  the  Great  Captain  as  well 
as  the  civil  ruler  of  the  Confederacy — a  delusion  which  he  con 
stantly  encouraged  and  absurdly  misled  in  his  official  refer 
ences  to  the  conduct  of  the  war.  This  was  not  the  only  mis 
take  of  these  journals  in  their  distant  admiration  of  Mr.  Davis. 
Impressed  by  his  literary  accomplishments,  and  comparing 
the  decorous  and  cultivated  style  of  his  State  papers  with  the 
coarse  tangled  English  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  they  fell  into  the  not 
uncommon  crrour  of  accepting  as  a  profound  statesman  a  man 
who  was  only  an  elegant  scholar. 

This  European  misjudgment  of  Mr.  Davis  sometimes  proceed 
ed  to  absurdities  of  praise,  which  were  curious  and  amusing, 
when  read  in  Richmond.  People  who  had  a  close  and  interiour 
view  of  the  slattern  government  of  the  Confederacy  were  sur 
prised  to  find  it  represented  abroad  as  a  model  of  energy,  and 
Mr.  Davis  raised  to  a  historical  figure  comparable  with 
Cromwell,  Graribaldi  and  such  famous  leaders  of  revolutions.  It 
was  common,  too,  in  this  European  estimate,  to  represent  him 
as  surrounded  by  the  most  skilled  statesmen  of  the  South,  in 
face  of  the  fact  that  his  Cabinet  of  dummies  was  one  of  the 
greatest  curiosities  of  the  war  and  that  the  Confederate  Presi 
dent  was  peculiar  among  rulers  for  constantly  repelling  from 
his  counsels  all  men  of  any  note  in  the  country,  and  choosing 
an  eminence  as  naked  as  possible.  As  an  evidence  of  this  ex- 


32  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

cess  of  eulogy,  the  author  recollects  to  have  copied  the  following 
from  one  of  the  British  Quarterlies,  with  reference  to  the  least 
deserving  member  of  Mr.  Davis'  Cabinet : — "  Mr.  Benjamin 
is  not  one  of  those  grave,  weighty,  and  self-contained  na 
tures  which,  when  illuminated  by  brightness  of  intellect,  never 
fail  to  impress  their  work  deeply  on  all  around  them.  Easily 
accessible,  voluble,  good-natured,  with  a  memory  like  Ma- 
caulay's,  and  singular  grace  and  facility  of  expression,  Mr. 
Benjamin  has  failed  to  win  from  his  countrymen,  and  especially 
from  the  journalists  of  Richmond,  one  tithe  of  the  respect  and 
admiration  which  they  who  know  him  best  conceive  to  be  his 
due.  As  a  speaker,  though  not  as  a  statesman,  he  has  probably, 
since  the  death  of  Webster,  had  no  equal  in  the  old  United 
States  Senate  !  " 

If  such  was  Mr.  Benjamin's  fame  in  the  "old  United  States 
Senate,"  he  greatly  descended  from  it  in  Richmond,  where  in 
point  of  abilities,  he  was  known  only  as  an  expert  subordinate, 
a  dapper  under-clerk  in  the  sinecure  of  Confederate  diplomacy. 
He  was  Secretary  of  the  War  Department  for  some  time,  but 
was  driven  from  it  for  his  excessive  freedom  in  granting  pass 
ports  through  the  military  lines,  especially  to  the  Jews  who 
nocked  in  wonderful  numbers  from  all  points  of  the  compass  to 
the  official  patronage  of  one  of  their  own  religion  in  so  high  a 
place  of  government.  Like  all  the  other  members  of  Mr.  Davis' 
Cabinet,  Mr.  Benjamin  did  only  the  duties  of  a  clerk,  exerted 
no  political  influence,  and  made  no  impression  whatever  on  the 
war.  No  one  ever  heard  in  Richmond  of  a  Cabinet-meeting 
in  the  usual  sense  of  a  political  council,  or  of  the  heads  of  the 
Departments  having  any  peculiar  ideas  of  the  war.  This  neg 
ative  character  of  Mr.  Davis'  Cabinet  was  fully  known  in  the 
South;  and  it  may  be  remarked,  in  passing,  that  any  attempt 


REVIEW  OP  THE  LATE  WAR.  33 

to  excuse  his  Dial-administration  is  singularly  baffled  by  this 
fact,  and  that  it  is  but  just  to  make  his  autocracy  the  measure 
of  his  responsibility. 

If  statesmanship  is  to  be  regarded  as  prescience,  then  Mr. 
Davis  had  least  of  this  gift.  He  went  about  at  all  times  of  the 
war,  frequently  in  the  unnecessary  character  of  a  public  speak 
er,  prophesying  the  speedy  and  easy  accomplishment  of  South 
ern  Independence.  He  commenced  these  announcements  as 
early  as  1862,  when  in  a  speech  in  Mississippi,  he  declared  in 
his  rhetorical  way,  that  the  evening  of  peace  was  already  spread 
ing  its  mild  radiance  on  the  horizon.  Some  of  these  prophetic 
words,  so  often  renewed  and  re-dated, are  very  curious.  They 
are  evidences  of  such  puerility  of  mind,  of  such  levity  and  in 
solence  and  ignorance  all  combined,  that  future  sober  history 
will  be  perplexed  to  account  for  them.  As  an  instance  we  may 
take  Mr.  Davis'  "  Address  to  the  Soldiers  "  in  the  last  year  of 
the  war,  made  on  a  most  elevated  occasion  and  intended  to  in 
spire  them  against  those  grand  campaigns  of  Grant  and  Sher 
man  which  were  already  being  prepared  on  the  borders  of  Vir 
ginia  and  G-eorgia.  It  is  well  known  that  this  year  was  that 
of  supreme,  most  elaborate  trial  on  the  part  of  the  North ;  the 
vastest  materials  were  accumulated ;  the  Federal  armies  were 
greatly  increased ;  tens  of  thousands  of  men  were  brought  out 
by  additional  drafts,  or  lashed  into  the  fields  by  golden  thongs 
of  bounties ;  all  along  the  front  of  the  war  was  spread  the  busy 
and  effulgent  preparation.  In  the  face  of  this  imposing  display 
of  the  enemy,  what 'shall  we  say  of  this  silly  speech  of  the  Con 
federate  President:  "  The  enemy's  campaign  of  1864  must, 
from  the  exhaustion  of  his  resources  of  men  and  money,  be  far  less 
formidable  than  those  of  the  last  two  years,  when  unimpaired 
means  were  used  with  boundless  prodigality,  and  with  results 


34  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

which  are  suggested  by  the  mention  of  the  names  of  Shiloh, 
Perryville,  Murfreesbbro,  and  the  Chickahominy,  Manassas, 
Fredericksburg  and  Chancellorsville  !" 

These  flippant  prophecies  of  speedy  success  were  doubtless 
intended  to  animate  the  South.  But  in  this  respect  it  was  the 
thought  of  a  small  mind,  a  shallow  trick ;  and  it  had  the  fault, 
too,  of  being  calculated  without  reference  to  a  peculiar  temper 
of  the  Southern  people  in  the  war.  .That  temper  was  one  of 
impatience,  almost  of  mutiny,  under  peculiar  hardships;  and 
thoughtful  men  remarked  it  more  than  once  in  the  exhibitions 
of  the  war.  It  grew  out  of  the  very  elements  of  Southern 
society.  Here  was  a  people  of  singularly  high  spirit,  who  had 
enjoyed  a  previous  prosperity  perhaps  greater  than  that  of  any 
other  community  of  equal  numbers  on  earth,  who  had  lived» 
although  perhaps  sometimes  without  cultivation,  yet  always  in 
ease,  and  who  had  their  due  share  of  republican  indisposition 
to  submit  to  severe  exercises  of  authority.  A  people  so  sensi 
tive  should  have  been  lightly  taxed  with  disappointments,  and 
the  policy  of  amusing  them  with  promises  was  essentially  a 
delicate  and  dangerous  one.  It  would  have  been  the  task  of  a 
true  statesman  to  have  moderated  their  expectations,  and  to 
have  educated  them  to  just  conceptions  of  the  trials  of  the 
war.  Instead  of  such  prudent  cultivations  of  strength,  Mr. 
Davis  went  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  inflaming  the  army  and 
people  with  promises,  and  while  foolishly  congratulating  him 
self  on  the  momentary  excitements  that  flared  out  under  such 
appeals,  he  did  not  perceive  that  the  heart  of  the  country  was 
being  steadily  consumed  by  this  policy  and  that  with  each  false 
appeal  to  public  confidence  he  lessened  his  hold  upon  it.  He 
was  at  last,  however,  to  see  that  hold  utterly  broken  and  de- 
gpised  and  to  find  no  other  response  to  those  promises,  with  which 


REVIEW  OP  THE  LATE  WAR.  35 

he  had  formerly  kindled  public  spirit  than  contempt  or  pity  for 
him  as  a  deluded  man.  His  last  promise  ventured  a  few  weeks 
before  the  evacuation  of  Richmond,  was  "that  before  the  sum 
mer  solstice  of  1865  the  South  would  be  dictating  terms  of 
peace  ";  but  that  solstice  found  him  a  lone  prisoner  who  had 
been  degridad  by  fetters,  within  the  walls  of  Fortress  Mon 
roe  ! 

In  a  former  paragraph  we  made  a  slight  reference  to  the  states 
manship  of  the  North,  and  suggested  a  comparison  in  this  res 
pect  between  the  Government  at  Washington  and  at  Richmond. 
Referring  again  to  this  subject  we  have  to  correct  an  errour  that 
has  very  extensively  prevailed  in  the  North.  This  errour  is 
that  the  Anti-Slavery  measures  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Administra 
tion  were  great  elements  of  statesmanship,  and  that  they  exert 
ed  considerable  influence  to  terminate  the  war,  and  secure  the 
success  of  the  North.  These  laws  in  this  respect  have  been 
most  unduly  valued  by  a  party  in  the  North.  They  were 
properly  notable  triumphs  of  partisanship  ;  but  they  were  cer 
tainly  not  acts  of  statesmanship,  and  their  influence  was,  in 
deed,  utterly  inconsiderable  in  affecting  the  mind  of  the  South, 
one  way  or  the  other,  and  determining  the  practical  course  of 
the  war. 

The  true  points  of  statesmanship  on  which  the  North  tri- 
umphed  were  two  :  the  prevention  of  European  interference  and 
the  wonderful  success  of  the  Federal  finances.  The  great  and 
even  prime  anxiety  of  the  South  was  directed  to  the  financial 
question  and  its  most  intelligent  hope  of  success  looked  con- 
stantly  and  eagerly  to  the  breaking  down  of  the  finances  at 
Washington,  since  it  was  argued  that  this  would  have  the  double 
effect  of  diminishing  the  means  of  war  and  of  turning  public 
attention  in  the  North  to  an  internal  concern  and  breaking  it 


3G  REVIEW  OP  THE  LATE  WAR. 

up  into  new  parties.  In  the  Richmond  journals  it  was  usual 
to  put  the  gold  quotations  at  the  head  of  Northern  news,  as 
the  most  important  item  of  intelligence.  Mr.  Davis  appears 
to  have  appreciated  the  importance  of  this  topic,  and  to  have 
shared  the  common  popular  anxiety  for  the  latest  financial 
news  from  the  North.  But  we  may  judge  how  small  and  nar 
row  were  his  views  on  this  subject,  when  we  learn  that  he 
hoped  to  break  down  the  Federal  finances  by  withholding  cotton, 
and  actually  gave  this  as  his  reason  against  certain  propositions, 
to  trade  cotton  through  the  lines  for  meat  and  bread  for  the 
army.  It  was  shown  to  him  that  if  he  accepted  these  propo 
sitions,  so  wide-spread  was  the  venality  of  the  enemy,  he  might 
trade  at  various  points  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  for  supplies  to 
support  the  Confederate  armies  for  years  to  come.  But  with 
his  singular  fatality  to  delusion  he  rejected  a  scheme  of  such 
vital  benefits,  because  he  was  persuaded  that  without  cotton  to 
export,  the  "Washington  Government  would  be  unable  to  pay 
the  January  interest  of  1863  on  its  bonds !  This  sage  opinion 
we  have  in  black  and  white  from  Mr.  Davis'  hand;  else  such 
a  display  of  contraction  and  credulity  of  judgment  might  well 
be  doubted. 

While  foreign  relations  and  finances  were  thus  the  leading 
cares  of  statesmanship  in  the  war,  the  Anti-Slavery  measures 
at  Washington  fell  upon  the  South  almost  without  attention. 
From  the  commencement  of  the  war  the  South,  had  assured 
itself  of  the  enemy's  design  to  free  the  slaves ;  it  suffered  no 
surprise  or  shock  in  this  respect ;  and  as  the  Federals  had  al 
ready  practically  freed  the  Negroes  within  their  military  lines, 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation  did  not  really  amount  to  any 
difference  in  the  estimation  of  the  Southern  people,  or  give 
them  any  new  cause  of  alarm,  ft  excited  no  political  interest 


REVIEW   OF   THE    LATE   WAR.  37 

whatever.  Mr.  Davis  referred  to  it  in  a  few  historical  phrases 
in  one  of  his  messages ;  and  ninety-eight  clergymen  in  the  South 
signed  "  an  address  to  Christians  throughout  the  world  "  unmask 
ing  the  hypocrisy  of  the  measure,  and  indicating  its  immorality. 
The  moral  interest  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was, 
indeed,  quite  apart  from  any  regard  for  it  as  a  State  paper ;  and 
on  this  aspect  of  the  question,  the  Southern  journals  made  re 
peated  and  lively  commentaries.  The  point  was  to  show  that 
the  measure  did  not  really  originate  out  of  benevolence  for  the 
Negro,  that  it  was  a  false  pretence  in  this  respect ;  and  for  this, 
evidences,  mostly  derived  from  Northern  sources,  were  con 
stantly  accumulated.  The  writer  recollects  to  have  published 
in  a  Richmond  paper,  with  great  effect,  the  following  yet  memo 
rable  statement  of  Rev.  Mr.  Fiske,  an  army  chaplain : — 

"  Out  of  an  average  number  of  4,000  blacks  under  my  charge  at 
Memphis  during  the  months  of  February,  March,  and  April,  1863, 
there  died  during  that  time  1200.  Three-fourths  of  them  had  no 
change  of  raiment ;  probably  one-fourth  of  the  women  had  but  one  gar 
ment  between  them  and  utter  nakedness.  Many  children  were  kept, 
night  and  day,  rolled  in  the  poor  blanket  of  a  family — its  sole  apparel. 
Multitudes  had  no  beds.  There  were  no  floors  in  their  leaky  tents, 
and  no  chance  for  fires.  The  wonder  is  not  that  so  many  died,  but 
that  so  many  lived.  The  suffering  of  this  people  is  our  national  dis 
honour.  If  they  are  not  rescued,  History  will  run  thus: — 'The 
American  people  enticed  within  their  lines  tens  of  thousands  of  slaves, 
alluring  them  with  promises  of  liberty.  They  proceeded  to  pick  out 
all  the  able-bodied  men,  to  re-inforce  their  armies,  huddled  the  rest 
together  in  great  camps,  and  left  them  to  perish  of  hunger  and  naked 
ness,  by  the  hundred ! ' ' 

It  is  precisely  thus  that  History  does  run.  There  is  an 
interest  of  the  late  war  yet  undeveloped  in  the  crime  done  the 
Negro  under  the  professions  of  Emancipation,  and  especially 
in  the  price  of  liberty  extorted  from  him  in  military  service. 
He  was  driven  into  the  army  by  rhetorical  flourishes.  In  a 


38  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

contribution  to  a  literary  periodical  the  author  has  taken 
occasion  thus  to  comment  on  the  use  of  the  Negro  by  the 
North:  "There  are  some  pages  of  the  history  of  the  past'war 
yet  unwritten,  wherein,  some  day,  will  be  justly  described  the 
cruel  and  inhuman  use  of  the  Negro  as  a  soldier,  of  which  Mr. 
"Wilson  of  Massachusetts  was  one  of  the  legislative  instruments. 
He  was  regarded  only  as  '  food  for  powder '  ;  he  was 
substituted  for  the  recreant  white  patriotism  of  the  North ; 
he  was  driven  to  slaughter  where  white  troops  refused  to  go  ; 
he  was  made  a  shield  for  their  cowardice,  and  used  throughout 
the  war  as  a  contemned  ally  and  stipendiary,  always  bearing 
an  undue  share  of  its  burdens  and  dangers.  This  is  historical 
fact.  Precisely  the  same  use  that  was  made  of  them  as 
military  allies  is  now  designed  of  them  as  political  followers. 
Their  employment  is  to  be  one  of  subserviency,  by  which 
white  politicians  of  the  Wilson  stamp  are  to  ascend  and  profit. 
He  is  one  of  that  Radical  council  at  Washington  which  has 
lately  been  advising  the  Negroes  most  illogically,  not  to  elect 
men  of  their  own  colour  to  office,  but  to  help  the  wandering 
carpet-bag  men  of  New  England  to  fame  and  profit.  He  has 
no  sentiment  or  mania  about  the  son  of  Ham ;  he  finds  him  a 
convenient  creature,  a  useful  ally,  a  serviceable  yoke-fellow  in 
certain  places,  but  in  no  sense  an  equal  and  fraternal  com 
panion.  Of  all  hypocrisies  of  these  political  times,  this  is 
the  blackest  and  cruellest.  It  would  work  the  Negro  to  the 
bone  in  its  own  selfish  service ;  pat  him,  and  pet  him,  and 
palter  with  him,  and  eventually  leave  him  to  die  on  the  dung 
hill.  Despite  all  the  affectations  of  Radicalism,  the  fact  is 
beyond  dispute  and  of  daily  growth  and  obviousness  that  there 
is  a  great,  crying  want  of  a  large,  adequate,  intelligent 
benevolence  for  the  Negro.  The  Radical  party  does  not 


REVIEW  OP  THE  LATE  WAR.  39 

supply  this  want ;  no  political  organization  does  ;  and  we  shall 
probably  not  see  one  of  the  greatest  problems  of  modern  times 
practically  solved  until  there  shall  arise  some  scheme  of 
benevolence  for  the  Negro,  wholly  apart  from  political  parties, 
and  much  more  deeply  founded  in  humanity." 

We  return  to  the  rival  statesmanship  of  the  parties  to  the 
war.     While  the  unbroken  finances  of  the  North  enabled  it  to 
keep  immense  armies  in  the  field1,  and  to  spread  a  factitious 
prosperity   through    the    country,    the    utter    failure    of    the 
Confederate  currency  did  more  perhaps  to  demoralize   the  war 
than  any  other  single  cause,  and  hurried  the  final  catastrophe. 
It    must    be    admitted   in   the    comparison  that   there  were 
peculiar    difficulties    attending    the    financial   system    of   the 
Confederacy,  especially  those  growing  out  of  the  isolation  of 
the  blockade.     Capital   in   the  South  was  at  first  freely  and 
generously  invested  in  the  Confederate  bonds;  but  there  was 
a  peculiar  limit  to  this    aid.     It  was   drawn  principally  from 
banks,  from  merchants  driven  out  of  business,  and  from  trust 
estates  and  charitable  institutions.     Such  sources  were  limited 
and  soon  exhausted ;  and  nothing  remained  but  to   flood  the 
country   with   paper    money.       The   evils   of    a    depreciated 
currency  are   of  the   most  various   description  ;  they  pervade 
all  the  channels  of  public  life  and  are  felt  in  every  daily  care 
of  the  people.     In  the  South  they  produced  universal  distress 
and  penetrated  every  home ;  they  were  named  as  the  prime 
cause  of  desertion  from  the  army ;  and  they  at  last  forced  the    \ 
Government  to  that  unpopular    measure   of    "impressment"      1  ._/' 
which  ultimately  recoiled  upon  it,  and  furnished  a  powerful 
argument   to   an    opposition   party   that    was   fast   becom 
formidable. 

It   should   be  noticed  that  in  the  Confederacy  was  a  party 


40  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

somewhat  analogous  to  that  which, 'in  Washington,  admitting 
the    legitimacy  of  the  war   and   professing   a    desire  for   its 
success,  was  yet  constantly  interposing  objections  to  assumptions 
of  unconstitutional  power.     In  the  Confederacy,  however,  this 
party  of  opposition  was  singularly  pure   and  enlightened  ;  its 
sincerity  was  above  suspicion ;  and  so  far  from   opposing  the 
errours  of  Mr.  Davis''  Administration  factiously,  it  did  so  only 
because  th'ese  errours  were  bringing  the  Confederate  cause  into 
hatred   and   contempt.     Its   spirit   is  well  illustrated  in  the 
passage  of  a  speech  of  one  of  its  most  elevated  leaders — Mr. 
Toombs   of    Georgia — opposing   the   Impressment   law.       "I 
have,"    said    Mr.    Toombs,    speaking    in    November,    1863, 
"  heard  it  frequently  stated,  and  it    has  been    maintained  in 
some    of  the   newspapers    in  Richmond,  that  we    should    not 
sacrifice  liberty  to  independence ;  but  I  tell  you,  my  country 
men,  the  two  are  inseparable.     If  we  lose  our  liberty  we  shall 
lose  our  independence  ;  and  when  our  Congress  determined  to 
support    our    armies    by    impressment,    gathering     supplies 
wherever  they  found  them  most  convenient,  and  forcing  them 
from  those  from  whom  their  agents  might  choose  to  take  them, 
in  violation  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  our  Constitution, 
which  requires  all  burdens  to  be  uniform  and  just,  and  paying 
for  them  such  prices  as  they  choose,  they  made  a  fatal  blunder 
which  cannot  be  persisted  in,  without  endangering  our   cause, 
and  probably  working  ruin  to  our  Government."     Yet  Mr. 
Toombs  although  thus  protesting  against  an  unconstitutional 
resource  was  zealous  for  every  act  of  devotion  and  sacrifice  to 
the  war,  without  the   pressure   of  violent  and  unequal  laws ; 
there  was  no  more  ardent  Southern  patriot ;  and  in  the   same 
speech  from  which  we  have  quoted,  referring  to  the   enemy's 
hope  of  subjugation,  he  said,   "  I  would  rather  see  this  whole 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR.  41 

country   the   cemetery   of    freemen   than   the   habitation    of 
slaves." 

^'The  results  of  Impressment  were  meagre,  and  by  no  means 
repaid  the  hostility  it  caused  the  Government.  In  vain  Mr. 
Davis  appealed  to  the  generosity  of  the  people,  and  said,  with 
his  usual  extravagance,  in  April,  1863,  that  there  was  "  but 
one  danger,  the  failure  of  provisions."  There  were  many 
other  dangers;  and  even  when  supplies  were  accumulated, 
they  rotted  in  the  depots,  for  want  of  transportation.  The 
railroads  that  were  available  were  few ;  and,  indeed,  when 
these  modes  of  transportation  are  in  the  best  condition,  it  is 
an  enormous  task  to  convey  on  a  single  line  all  that  is 
requisite  for  a  great  army.  In  Virginia,  the  railroads  were 
already  so  worn  and  of  such  little  worth,  that  speed  on  them 
was  reduced  to  ten  miles  an  hour,  and  tonnage  from  twenty- 
five  to  fifty  per  cent.  The  scarcity  of  food,  the  wreck  of 
transportation,  and  other  material  difficulties  and  hardships 
added  to  a  general  distress  in  the  South  already  multiplied  by 
the  extreme  unpopularity  of  Mr.  Davis'  political  measures. 
The  fact  is  the  Southern  people  had  no  true  idea  of  the  trials 
to  which  they  were  to  be  subjected,  until  the  fall  of  Fort 
Donelson  in  the  West  and  the  simultaneous  commencement  of 
McClellan's  advance  on  Richmond  in  the  East  unveiled  the 
extended  front  of  the  war,  and  revealed  the  magnitude  of  the 
task  which  still  lay  before  them.  But  it  was  too  late  then,  in 
the  second  year  of  hostilities,  to  repair  many  fatal  omissions ; 
to  send  the  cotton  out  of  the  country,  to  obtain  a  basis  for  the 
currency,  to  import  large  stocks  of  supplies.  And  so  from 
this  period  of  sober  afterthought,  the  South  may  be  said  to 
have  lost  its  former  perfect  and  almost  insolent  confidence  in 
the  war  and  to  have  lived  in  a  feverish  anxiety  varying  with 


42  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

the  fortunes  of  its  arms,  at  one  time  mounting  to  hope,  and 
again  sinking  to  depths  of  despondency  and  discontent.  / 

The  last  desperate  attempt  of  the  Confederate  Government 
to  re-animate  the  war  and  inflame  anew  the  resentment  of  the 
people  was  on  the  occasion  of  the  famous  Fortress  Monroe 
commission.  In  the  minds  of  some  leading  persons  in  the 
South,  the  interview  with  President  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward 
was  a  sincere  experiment  on  the  sentiment  and  temper  of  the 
Northern  Government ;  but  Mr.  Davis  had  consented  to  it 
with  the  especial  view  of  obtaining  an  ultimatum  from  the 
enemy  so  harsh  as  to  exasperate  the  people  of  the  South,  and 
to  put  before  them  a  plain  alternative,  which  he  calculated 
would  be  a  continuation  of  the  war,  or  an  unconditional 
submission  too  absolute  to  be  entertained.  The  secret  thought 
in  Richmond  of  the  Fortress  Monroe  commission  was  thus, 
strangely  enough,  to  kill  off  the  "peace  conferences"  rather 
than  to  improve  the  growing  tendency  to  negotiation.  In 
some  respects  Mr.  Davis  calculated  aright ;  but  the  scheme  of 
re-animation  utterly  failed  for  peculiar  reasons,  and  the 
speeches  at  the  African  Church  on  the  choice  of  "liberty  or 
death  "  were  the  most  inglorious  fizzles  of  an  expiring  contest. 

The  official  report  of  the  Confederate  Commissioners  was 
carefully  prepared,  so  as  to  exclude  all  hopes  of  further 
negotiations  for  peace,  and  to  summon  the  South  to  new  and 
desperate  resolution ;  it  was  a  very  scant  document,  and  made 
the  impression  that  the  interview  with  the  Federal  representa 
tives  was  singularly  ha^sh  and  formal.  But,  unfortunately  for 
the  object  of  Mr.  Davis,  there  leaked  out  some  private  versions 
of  the  conference  which  showed  the  official  report  to  be  partial 
and  sinister,  and  suggested  a  friendly  and  generous  disposition  of 
President  Lincoln,  quite  at  variance  with  the  spirit  in  which 


REVIEW  OP  THE  LATE  WAR.  43 

he  was  officially  represented  to  have  replied  to  the  Commis 
sioners. 

In  private  accounts  of  the  conference,  Mr.  Seward  was  es 
pecially  represented  as  kindly,  and  very  much  disposed  to 
enter  into  a  general  amicable  conversation  with  the  Confederate 
Commissioners.  He  asked  Mr.  Hunter  with  amiable  solici 
tude  of  many  of  those  they  had  mutually  known  in  former  days 
in  Washington,  and  inquired  particularly  of  the  health  of  Mr- 
Davis.  There  were  no  marks  of  harshness  in  the  conference, 
and  no  attendance  of  ceremonies  and  forms.  At  parting  Mr. 
Seward  shook  Mr.  Hunter  by  the  hand  very  warmly,  and  said, 
with  effusion,  "  Grod  bless  you,  Hunter  !  " 

The  author  recollects  to  have  made  some  reference  to  this 
and  other  incidents  of  personal  amiability  in  this  famous  con 
ference,  and  to  have  designed  publishing  it  in  the  Richmond 
Examiner ;  but  Mr.  Daniel  ruled  it  out  sharply,  and  for  a 
special  reason.  He  always  forbade  the  publication  of  any  of 
the  amenities  of  the  war ;  he  thought  they  were  likely  to 
mislead  as  to  the  true  character  and  conduct  of  the  enemy,  and 
to  soften  the  resolution  of  the  South.  It  was  necessary,  he 
thought,  to  paint  the  Yankee  very  black  and  to  introduce  him 
constantly  in  circumstances  of  atrocity ;  and  the  excursions 
and  whiskey  bouts  under  flags  of  truce,  and  all  amiable  episodes 
of  the  war  was  the  peculiar  detestation  of  the  Examiner.  Mr. 
Daniel  was  naturally  atrabilious,  a  dark  fierce  man  with  a 
hard,  electric  glitter  in  his  eyes  ;  satire  and  invective  were  the 
habits  of  his  genius  ;  but  he  had  a  hatred  of  the  Yankee  that 
was  positively  savage.  Once  he  said,  "  scntimentalism  is  as 
much  out  of  place  in  destroying  Yankees,  as  in  hilling 
chinches  I  " 

He  had  an  inveterate  complaint  against  Mr.  Davis  for  his 


44  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

apparent  tenderness  in  abstaining  from  retaliation  for  the  nume 
rous  murders  committed  by  the  enemy  outside  the  pale  of  war  ; 
but  it  is  fair  to  say  that  he  did  not  altogether  attribute  the 
hesitation  of  the  Confederate  President  compel  to  justice  in 
these  cases  to  a  false  sentimentalism,  although  that  was  com 
monly  supposed  to  be  a  weakness  of  his  character.  He  had  a 
deeper  explanation  for  it  in  his  private  conversations.  On  his 
intimate  friends  he  repeatedly  urged  the  idea  that  Mr.  Davis 
was  studious  to  extricate  himself  from  all  personal  con 
sequences  in  case  of  failure  of  the  war,  that  he  carefully  pro 
vided  for  his  own  safety  in  such  event,  and  that  he  therefore 
feared  to  exact  any  retribution  from  the  public  enemy,  for 
which  he  might  hereafter  be  called  personally  to  account. 
Whatever  the  value  of  this  opinion,  it  is  a  little  curious  that 
in  not  one  single  case  Mr.  Davis  ever  took  life  on  the  plea  of 
retaliation,  although  he  published  numerous  orders  to  that  effect 
(as  in  the  case  of  the  Palmyra  Massacre).  He  always  recoiled 
at  the  last  moment,  and  the  backward  movement  was  some 
times  so  plaints  to  excite  such  explanations  as  Mr.  Daniel  has 
given. 

In  the  last  stages  of  the  war,  and  contributing  to  its  termi 
nation,  there  was  a  marked  decline  of  hostility  to  the  Yankee, 
a  softening  of  that  fierce  animosity  which  the  newspapers  had 
cultivated  as  a  stimulant  in  the  contest.  The  wonder  is  that 
this  should  vave  been  so,  when  the  outrages  of  Sherman  were 
fresh,  and  when  the  enemy  was  really  in  his  fiercest  and  most 
destructive  moods,  and  the  atrocity  of  his  arms  at  its  height. 
The  explanation  is  very  peculiar,  and  one  must  have  closely 
studied  public  sentiment  in  the  South  to  understand  its  curious 
condition  on  this  particular  subject  towards  the  end  of  the  war. 
It  was  an  effect  produced  entirely  by  politicians  who  had  had 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR.  45 

frequent  opportunities  in  various  conferences,  regular  or 
irregular,  with  Northern  men  to  inform  and  mitigate  public 
opinion  as  to  the  real  designs  of  the  enemy.  The  idea  was 
spread,  sometimes  insidiously,  that  although  the  North  was 
violent  in  the  war,  its  excesses  in  this  might  be  forgiven,  as 
proceeding  not  so  much  from  cruelty  as  from  a  false  notion  of 
military  necessity,  and  that  its  political  design  was  really  of 
the  most  moderate  and  indifferent  description,  meaning  only  the 
re-establishment  of  the  Union,  and  the  restoration  of  the 
status  quo  in  every  other  particular.  The  reports  brought 
back  from  the  conferences  referred  to  were  generally  those  of 
the  most  polite  and  pleasant  personal  intercourse,  of  hearty 
fellowship  and  kind  entertainment  on  the  enemy's  part.  Many 
of  the  politicians  who  had  enjoyed  such  interviews,  or  who 
had  Northern  correspondence,  had  heard  in  a  confused  way  of 
the  most  liberal  propositions,  and  were  ready  to  assure  their 
weary  countrymen  of  almost  any  terms  of  peace,  on  the  single 
condition  of  laying  down  their  arms,  and  trusting  themselves 
to  the  generosity  of  the  North. 

Under  these  representations,  generally  made  privately  and 
insidiously,  and  never  venturing  in  the  columns  of  the  press, 
where  the  death's  head  of  "  Subjugation"  was  constantly  display 
ed,  the  idea  grew  in  the  Southern  mind  that  the  Yankee  was 
not  suctr  a  terrible  monster  after  all,  that  the  newspapers  had 
been  practising  scare-crows  on  the  people,  and  that  the  gov 
ernment  had  only  for  its  own  selfish  purposes  exaggerated  the 
demands  of  the  enemy  and  painted  the  terrours  of  submission. 
The  extent  of  this  delusion  in  the  last  days  of  the  Confeder 
acy  can  scarcely  be  conceived  by  one  not  admitted  to  those 
under-currents  of  opinion  which  make  the  secret  history  of 
governments  in  great  wars.  It  was  a  whispered  thought,  an 


46  BEVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

adroit  suggestion,  rather  than  a  declared  idea  making  its  ap 
pearance  in  the  press,  or  circulated  in  open  debate.  While 
the  newspapers  displayed  the  horrours  of  submission,  and  John 
Mitchel  wrote  in  serial  articles  the  parallel  between  Ireland 
and  the  conquered  South,  and  President  Davis  continued  the 
stereotype  of  "death  preferable  to  defeat,"  the  idea  went  se 
cretly  and  steadily  abroad  in  the  South  that  the  Yankee  was 
not  as  black  as  he  was  painted,  and  that  surrender  was  not 
the  chief  of  evils. 

Of  this  delusion  towards  the  end  of  the  war  (so  inconsistent 
with  the  public  tone  of  the  South  and  especially  with  the  de 
fiance  of  Mr.  Davis)  the  author  ventures  to  make  this  curious 
remark  :  that  many  men  in  the  South  were  even  led  to  doubt 
of  the  loss  of  Slavery  in  the  final  adjustment  with  the  enemy, 
and  on  this  particular  account  were  induced  to  relinquish  the 
contest.  This  supposition  may  appear  very  extravagant  at 
this  day ;  but  it  should  be  remembered  that  at  the  time  referr 
ed  to,  the  South  had  very  imperfect  communications  with  the 
North,  that  she  was  a  prey  to  rumours,  and  that  politicians 
were  busy  with  the  story  of  the  generous  temper  of  the  ene 
my.  People  were  told  in  whispered  conversations  that  it  was 
not  impossible  that,  at  some  time  after  the  surrender  of  their 
arms,  Slavery  might  be  recovered  from  the  yielding  disposition 
of  the  North ;  a  second  supposition  was  yet  more  prol^ble,  to 
the  effect  that  they  might  expect  pecuniary  compensation,  if 
they  promptly  and  gracefully  accepted  emancipation,  and 
rumours  were  already  flying  in  the  air  that  President  Lincoln 
had  intimated  such  a  proposition  to  Alexander  H.  Stephens 
in  the  conference  at  Fortress  Monroe. 

Mr.  Stephens  has  since  confessed  (if  we  are  to  believe  a  Geor 
gia  newspaper)  that  in  that  conference  Mr.  Lincoln  said  to  him : 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR.  47 

"  Tour  people  might  after  all  get  four  hundred  thousand  dol 
lars  for  the  slaves,  and  you  would  be  surprised  if  I  should  call 
the  names  of  some  of  those  who  favour  such  a  proposition." 
But  this  important  disclosure  has  been  so  severely  suppressed 
since  the  death  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  an  injury  to  his  memory  in 
Northern  estimation,  that  the  public  even  to  this  day  is  scarce 
ly  aware  of  it,  or  is  unprepared  to  credit  it.  Certainly,  it 
would  have  been  more  manly  for  Mr.  Stephens  to  have  made 
this  disclosure  in  his  public  report  of  the  conference,  instead 
of  submitting  the  bald  statement  he  did  and  locking  in  hig 
breast  so  important  a  secret. 

The  difficulty  of  Mr.  Stephens  was  that  of  duplicity,  a 
common  vice  of  politicians,  and  of  which  the  South  had  some 
very  painful  illustrations  in  the  war.  Probably  at  this  timo 
Mr.  Stephens  was  really  solicitous  for  negotiation  with  the 
enemy,  and  disposed  to  make  a  clean  breast  of  the  Fortress 
Monroe  affair,  an  honest  disclosure  of  all  he  knew.  But  he 
was  estopped  by  his  former  excessive  speeches,  in  which  in  a 
more  hopeful  period  of  the  war  he  had  courted  public  favour 
by  denouncing  a  reconstruction  of  the  Union  as  the  sum  of 
all  shame,  the  completion  at  once  of  the  ruin  and  disgrace  of 
the  South.  There  must  have  stuck  in  his  memory  some  of 
the  words  he  had  used  in  a  speech  in  North  Carolina  in  the 
year  1863.  Then  he  said:  "  Subjugation  would  be  utter  ruin 
and  eternal  death  to  the  Southern  people,  and  all  that  they 
hold  most  dear.  Rather  than  submit  to  anything  short  of 
final  and  complete  separation  from  the  North,  let  us  all  resolve 
to  die  like  men  worthy  of  freemen."  Such  was  the  language 
of  the  man  who  subsequently  went  on  the  errand  of  Fortress 
Monroe,  to  inquire  the  terms  of  re-admission  into  the  Union, 
and  then  took  refuge  in  a  fraudulent  version  of  the  interview. 


48  REVIEW  OP  THE  LATE  WAR. 

It  is  remarkable  that  of  the  most  conspicuous  men  in  the 
Confederacy  who  coquetted  for  peace  in  1864,  they  were  those 
who  in  former  periods  of  the  war  had  been  most  severe  and 
savage  in  denouncing  any  effort  towards  reunion  with  the 
North,  even  in  the  last  extremity.  So  another  Georgia  politi 
cian,  a  competitor  of  Mr.  Stephens  in  the  games  of  popularity 
— Herschel  V.  Johnson — was  busy  in  1864  with  a  scheme 
of  a  convention  of  all  the  States  to  restore  the  Union ;  yet  this 
same  man  in  the  preceding  year  thus  glowed  in  a  public 
harrangue: — "The  bleaching  bones  of  one  hundred  thousand 
gallant  soldiers,  slain  in  battle,  would  be  clothed  in  tongues  of 
fire  to  swear  to  everlasting  infamy  the  man  who  whispers 
'  yield. ' ' '  Something,  to  be  sure,  may  be  pardoned  to  the  zeal  and 
inflation  of  the  popular  declaimer ;  and  something  must  be  al 
lowed  for  modifications  of  opinion  by  the  varying  fortunes  of 
the  Confederate  arms  ;  but  changes  of  sentiment 'so  excessive 
as  those  we  have  noted  are  essentially  the  evidences  of  heart 
less  demagogues,  and  should  be  remembered  to  condemn  them 
forever  in  the  estimation  of  the  honest  and  humane. 

The  author  would  occupy  too  much  space,  if  he  was  to  cite 
even  the  leading  examples  within  his  knowledge  of  displays 
of  Southern  demagogues  touching  peace  negotiations  within 
the  last  two  years  of  the  war.  He  returns  to  the  history  of 
public  sentiment  on  that  subject.  As  far  back  as  the  last 
months  of  the  year  1863,  a  popular  sentiment  had  commenced 
in  North  Carolina  looking  to  negotiations  with  the  North,  and 
prepared  to  accept  the  restoration  of  the  Union.  The  senti 
ment  was  timid,  and  not  disposed  to  court  discussion.  It  first 
grew  out  of  a  distrust  of  the  military  fortunes  of  the  South; 
but  it  was  wonderfully  increased,  as  we  have  already  noticed 
in  the  last  year  of  the  war,  by  milder  regards  of  the  enemy 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR.  49 

and  the  remarkable  delusion  that  there  might  be  obtained 
from  him  terms  of  generosity,  even  embracing  the  fallen  for 
tunes  of  Slavery.  Many  persons  will  be  skeptical  of  the  ex 
istence  of  such  a  hypothesis  in  the  popular  mind  of  the  South, 
because  it  was  unperceived  by  them,  or  because  the  experience 
of  the  present  renders  it  absurd. 

Those,  however,  are  imperfect  tests.  President  Davis  appears 
to  have  been  made  aware,  some  months  before  the  close  of  the 
war,  of  the  existence  of  such  a  hope  in  the  Southern  mind, 
and  he  considered  it  so  dangerous  to  the  Confederate  cause,  so 
well  calculated  to  diminish  its  energies  in  the  war,  that  he 
made  special  endeavours  to  expel  it.  He  referred  particularly 
to  :t  in  a  speech  at  Augusta,  Georgia,  in  October,  1864.  "  Some 
there  are,"  he  said,  "who  speak  of  Reconstruction  with  slavery 
maintained ;  but  are  there  any  who  would  thus  measure  rights 
by  property  ! — God  forbid."  He  continued  to  explain  that 
the  South  was  not  in  a  revolution,  that  it  was  fighting  for 
"constitutional  liberty,"  and  he  exhorted  his  audience  that 
the  stake  was  not  only  Slavery  but  every  right,  interest  and" 
hope  attached  to  liberty  and  summed  in  the  existence  of 
freemen. 

These  exhortations  were  made  for  the  last  time  on  the  re 
turn  of  the  Confederate  Commissioners  from  Fortress  Monroe; 
and  they  were  made  ineffectually.  It  is  curious  to  notice  how 
the  especial  purpose  of  re-animating  the  war  was  served  in 
that  famous  meeting  at  the  African  Church,  to  accomodate 
which  all  business  was  suspended  in  Richmond,  and  a  day 
taken  for  public  orations.  Mr.  Hunter,  one  of  the  Commis 
sioners,  addressed  the  multitude,  and  gave  them  to  understand 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  turned  from  the  propositions  of  peace 
with  cold  insolence — an  insolence  which  he  described  as  mon- 
3 


50  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

strous,  since  the  Federal  President  "might  have  offered  some 
thing  to  a  people  with  two  hundred  thousand  soldiers,  and 
such  soldiers  under  arms."  The  frightful  apparition  of  Sub 
jugation  was  next  indroduced.  "I  will  not  attempt, "  said 
Mr.  Hunter,  "  to  draw  a  picture  of  Subjugation.  It  would 
require  a  pencil  dipped  in  blood  to  paint  its  gloom."  Mr. 
Benjamin,  Secretary  of  State,  followed  with  yet  more  artful 
appeals  to  the  multitude.  He  affected  to  witness  the  anima 
tion  which  he  designed  to  produce,  and  spoke  of  it  with  exci 
ting  praises.  "How  great  the  difference  in  one  short  week  ! 
It  seems  an  age,  so  magical  has  been  the  change  !  Hope 
beams  in  every  countenance  !  We  now  know  in  our  hearts 
that  this  people  must  conquer  its  freedom  or  die  !"  The  Con 
federate  Congress  continued  the  same  adroit  style  of  taking 
for  granted  a  change  of  popular  sentiment.  In  an  address  to 
the  people,  it  declared :  "  Thanks  be  to  God,  who  controls  and 
overrules  the  counsels  of  men,  the  haughty  insolence  of  our 
enemies  which  they  hoped  would  intimidate  and  break  the 
spirit  of  our  people  is  producing  the  very  contrary  effect." 

The  effect  of  these  rhetorical  stimulants  could  scarcely  have 
been  less  than  some  momentary  excitement ;  but  after  all  that 
was  publicly  said,  the  thought  still  resided  in  the  public  mind 
that  the  Richmond  Government  was  dealing  unfairly  with  it,  and 
that  the  enemy  was  not  as  inaccessible  or  as  harsh  as  he  was 
represented.  This  opinion  progressed  to  the  day  of  the  surren 
der.  It  was  this  peculiar  trust  in  the  generosity  of  the  North, 
this  mollification  of  hatred  of  the  Yankee  and  of  the  passions 
with  which  the  war  commenced,  coupled  with  an  entire  want 
of  confidence  in  the  Davis  Administration  and  a  certain  resent 
ment  towards  it,  that  brought  the  Southern  Confederacy  to  such 
a  sudden  and  almost  abrupt  conclusion  of  the  war.  The  au- 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR.  51 

thor  is  very  firm  in  this  conviction,  and  is  prepared  to  defend  it 
against  all  proper  and  seasonable  criticism.  The  popular  mind 
of  the  South,  all  official  protestations  to  the  contrary,  expected 
a  generous  treatment  after  the  war,  and  had  lost  its  faith  in  the 
conventional  terroursof  Subjugation,  so  long  maintained  in  the 
newspapers  and  in  the  public  demonstrations  of  the  Richmond 
Government.  As  evidence  of  this  disposition,  the  people  of  the 
South  accepted  the  famous  Johnson-Sherman  Convention,  as  a 
natural  event;  there  were  no  transports  of  surprise  when  it 
was  first  announced  to  the  people  of  the  South;  they  consider 
ed  it  only  as  the  declaration  of  the  status  quo^  in  which  they 
were  to  resume  their  equal  and  accustomed  places  in  the  Union,  as 
they  expected  when  they  had  laid  down  their  arms.  This  was  the 
common  thought  in  the  act  of  surrender,  and  which,  indeed,  hast 
ened  the  termination  of  the  war.  It  was  not  disturbed  until  the 
Northern  Congress  commenced  its  "problem  of  Reconstruc 
tion,"  awoke  the  people  of  the  South  from  their  delusions  and 
confirmed  the  worst  prophecies  of  Subjugation  to  which  they 
had  sealed  their  ears  in  the  last  periods  of  the  war. 

A  few  weeks  before  Lee's  surrender,  one  of  the  most  accom 
plished  and  thoughtful  men  in  the  South  ( Robert  W.  Hughes,  of 
Virginia,)  said  to  the  author :  "  The  war  will  fail  because  the 
people  of  the  South  never  had  to  the  time  of  taking  up  arms 
that  actual  experience  of  hardship  and  oppression  sufficient  to 
justify  a  rebellion,  and  calculated  to  furnish  moral  animation 
enough  to  sustain  it." 

It  has  been  curiously  reserved  for  the  South  to  obtain  after 
the  war  the  actual  experience  of  oppression,  and  of  that  meas 
ure  of  despotism  which  would  have  amply  justified  the  com 
mencement  of  hostilities.  If  it  fought,  in  1860,  for  principles 
too  abstract,  it  has  superabundant  causes  for  rebellion  now, 


52  REVIEW  OF  THE  LATE  WAR. 

which  although  they  may  not,  and  need  not  produce  another 
war,  yet  have  the  effect  to  justify,  in  a  remarkable  way,  the  first 
appeal  to  arms.  It  is  a  justification  on  retrospect,  but  none 
the  less  striking  on  that  account.  The  author  has  been  partic 
ular  to  describe  that  delusive  faith  in  Northern  moderation, 
that  reaction  from  the  first  passions  of  the  war  which  hastened 
the  submission  of  the  South,  and  made  it  an  easy  descent  from 
her  original  aspiration  of  independence,  because  he  believes 
that  this  discovery  of  motive  is  one  of  great  historical  import 
ance  and  furnishes  some  very  interesting  reflections  on  the 
present  political  situation  at  Washington.  Those  reflections 
he  may  pursue  in  another  chapter.  It  is  suflicient  to  conclude 
here  that  the  South  has  been  the  victim  of  delusive  hopes,  and 
that  she  abandoned  the  war,  not  so  much  under  the  compulsion 
of  military  necessities,  as  from  the  persuasions  of  a  false  polit 
ical  hypothesis. 


53 


KECONSTRUCTION. 

THE    DESTRUCTION    OP    THE    WAR. 

Realization  of  its  losses  in  the  South— Political  "vivisection  "—The  material  civilization 
of  the  North,  the  conqueror — Its  characteristic  warfare — A  curious  reminiscence  of 
B.  F.  Butler — The  "problem"  of  Reconstruction — President  Lincoln  in  Ilichmond — 
Afterthought  of  the  Republican  party. 

The  sun  of  another  Austerlitz  rose  in  Virginia.  The  green 
banners  of  the  spring  of  1865  hung  thick  about  the  Capitol 
mound  in  Ilichmond,  when  a  hundred  cannon  on  the  brow  of 
that  historic  hill  celebrated  the  surrender  of  Lee's  Army,  and 
thundered  the  message  of  peace.  There  was  then  discovered 
by  the  people  of  the  South  what  had  hitherto  been  put  behind 
convenient  curtains  by  their  rulers,  or  been  concealed  by 
ornaments  of  their  own  vanity  and  hopes — the  vast  ruin  of  the 
war ;  the  pool  of  blood  and  the  withered  corpses  around  it ; 
the  back-ground  with  its  piles  of  dead  and  monuments  of  woe. 
The  illuminated  curtain  was  drawn  up;  the  atmosphere  of 
glory  was  darkened  and  subdued,  the  garish  lights  turned 
down,  and  realized  for  the  first  time  by  the  people  of  the 
South  was  the  wan  picture  of  the  ruins  of  their  country.  The 
embroidery  of  war,  the  cloth  of  gold  was  lifted — and  the  stark 
corpse  was  beneath  it,  the  chilled  flesh  and  the  dumb 
wounds — 


54  RECONSTRUCTION. 

"  Woe  to  the  hand  that  shed  this  costly  blood ! 
Over  the  wounds  do  now  I  prophesy — 
Which,  like  dumb  mouths,  do  ope  their  ruby  lips, 
To  beg  the  voice  and  utterance  of  my  tongue — 
A  curse  shall  light  upon  the  limbs  of  men; 
Domestic  fury  and  fierce  civil  strife 
Shall  cumber  all  the  parts  of  Italy." 

As  long  as  the  war  was  active,  and  the  South  possessed  the 
animation  of  glory  and  the  inspiration  of  her  passions,  there 
was  no  count  of  the  cost,  and  but  little  realization  of  losses.  The 
Government  suppressed  the  details  of  disasters ;  the  press  was 
vain  and  effulgent  to  the  last.  But  with  the  end  of  the  war 
came  the  discovery  and  calculation  of  its  losses. 

Its  total  sum  was  the  most  enormous  of  modern  convulsions. 
It  has  been  calculated  thus :  three  thousand  millions  of  dollars 
Jost  in  the  slaves,  two  thousand  millions  in  ravages  of  the 
country  and  acts  of  destruction,  and,  at  least,  two  thousand 
millions  more  in  the  sacrifices  of  credits  and  in  the  depreciation 
of  property  consequent  upon  the  war — seven  thousand  millions 
in  all  !*  Of  all  this  wealth  the  South  was  disemboweled  by 
the  sword — so  much  cut  out  of  her  vitals ;  and  the  danger  was 
that  of  utter  collapse  in  the  shrunken  body  politic,  death  of  a 
community  from  which  had  been  carved  so  much  of  flesh  and 
blood.  "We  have  heard  of  those  terrible  medical  dissections — 
vivisections  they  are  called — which  experiment  upon  animal 

*  The  losses  of  the  South  in  the  war  have  recently  been  stated  at  a  larger  figure. 
The  following  estimate  of  them  is  from  a  late  speech  of  Senator  Doolittle — one  of  the 
most  moderate  and  judicious  members  of  the  United  States  Senate  : — "  The  people  of 
the  South  have  been  punished  already  by  the  sacrifice  of  all  their  slave  property, 
valued  at  three  to  four  thousand  million  dollars ;  by  the  sacrifice  of  more  than  three- 
fourths  of  all  other  personal  property,  probably  two  thousand  millions  more ;  by  the 
^acrifice  of  their  public  and  private  credits — at  least  a  thousand  millions  more  ;  by  the 
depreciation  of  the  value  of  all  their  real  estate  at  least  seventy-five  per  cent — 
amounting  probably  to  more  than  two  thousand  million  dollars  more — making  in  all  a 
sacrifice  of  property,  credits,  and  values  in  the  Southern  States  alone  of  at  least  nine 
thousand  million  dollars." 


RECONSTRUCTION.  55 

existence,  and  see  what  parts  can  be  taken  from  the  body,  and 
yet  leave  an  imperfect,  hideous  life.  The  South  lived  after 
the  operation,  survived  the  loss  and  torture;  but  surely  the 
penalty  was  enough,  and  devils  only  might  have  thought  of 
taking  further  vengeance  upon  the  torn  and  mutilated  victim. 

The  exhibition  of  the  past  war  was  a  conflict  of  two  schools 
of  opinion,  long  contestant  but  most  unequally  supplied  with 
physical  instruments  and  resources.  It  was  a  profound  and 
long-continued  conflict  between  the  political  and  social  systems 
of  North  and  South,  with  which  Negro  Slavery  had  a  con 
spicuous  connection;  a  conflict  on  which  was  ranged  on  one 
side  the  party  that  professed  the  doctrines  of  consolidation 
and  numerical  majorities ;  that  represented  the  material 
civilization  of  America;  that  had  the  commerce  and  the 
manufactures,  the  ships,  the  workshops,  the  war-material  of 
the  country — on  the  other  side  the  party  that  maintained  the 
doctrines  of  State-rights,  studied  government  as  a  system  of 
checks  and  balances,  and  cultivated  the  highest  schools  of 
statesmanship  in  America;  that  represented  a  civilization 
scanty  in  shows  and  luxuries,  but  infinitely  superiour  in  the 
moral  and  sentimental  elements ;  that  devoted  itself  to 
agriculture,  and  had  nothing  but  its  fields  and  brave  men  to 
oppose  to  a  people  that  whitened  every  sea  with  their 
commerce,  and  by  the  power  of  their  wealth,  and  under  the 
license  of  "  legitimacy,"  put  the  whole  world  under  tribute  for 
troops  and  munitions.* 

In   this   unequal   match  of  force,  aggravated,  as  we  have 
seen,  by  a  disproportion  of  statesmanship  and  other  causes, 


*  And  yet  notwithstanding  this  inequality  of  material  resources,  a  recent  New  York 
Herald  (of  March  21,  1868)  describes  the  past  war  as  "an  attempt  that  came  nearer 
success  than  ever  did  such  revolt  before  1 " 


56  RECONSTRUCTION. 

the  material  civilization  of  the  North  conquered,  and 
impressed  itself  upon  the  entire  history  of  the  struggle.  It 
originated  a  coarse  characteristic  warfare,  destitute  of  those 
ingenious  methods  and  fine  emotions,  which  have  made  of 
modern  war  an  intellectual  game  and  a  moral  inspiration,  and 
thus  dignified  and  adorned  it — a  cruel  mechanical  warfare  of 
numbers  and  vis  anertie,  disdaining  all  sentimentalism,  and 
justifying  all  means  that  might  most  certainly  accomplish  the 
end  of  subjugation.  It  was  a  war  which  ravaged  the  country, 
not  to  disable  the  enemy,  but  to  "strike  terrour  "  into  the 
general  population;  which  spared  no  age,  sex,  or  condition; 
which  burnt  two  thousand  churches  ;  which  sacked  the  homes 
of  the  helpless  and  afilicted ;  which  violated  every  humanity, 
and  brought  before  the  startled  attention  of  the  civilized 
world  the  picture  of  a  conflict  devoided  of  all  the  heroic  and 
chivalric  sentiments  which  were  thought  to  attend  modern 
arms,  and  repeating  some  of  the  worst  atrocities  of  a  past  and 
barbarous  age. 

When  Gen.  Benjamin  F.  Butler  marched  into  Maryland  in 
the  first  year  of  the  war,  at  the  head  of  Massachusetts  troops,  he 
issued  an  order  to  his  command  that  "any  unauthorized  inter 
ference  with  private  property  will  be  most  signally  punished." 
He  only  wished  to  march  to  Washington,  "peaceably,  quietly, 
and  civilly,  in  obedience  to  the  request  of  the  President." 
He  tendered  to  Governor  Hicks  the  assistance  of  his  troops  to 
suppress  a  threatened  servile  insurrection.  When  Governor 
Andrew  of  Massachusetts  ventured  to  reprove  him  for  this  act 
as  one  of  "unmerited  grace,"  Butler  replied :  "  It  was  simply 
a  question  of  good  faith  and  honesty  of  purpose."  He 
declared  that  to  use  the  Negro  in  the  war  would  be  to  repeat 
that  legend  of  infamy  in  the  Revolution,  when  the  British 


RECONSTRUCTION.  57 

ministry,  in  availing  themselves  of  the  alliance  of  the  red 
man,  asked,  "  May  we  not  use  all  the  means  which  God  and 
nature  have  put  into  our  hands  to  subjugate  the  colonies  ?  " — 
and  growing  warmer  in  the  argument,  he  proceeded  to  declare, 
in  the  face  of  Governor  Andrew's  displeasure :  "  When  any 
community  in  the  United  States  who  have  met  me  in  honour 
able  warfare,  OT  even  in  the  prosecution  of  a  rebellious  war  in 
an  honourable  manner,  shall  call  upon  me  for  protection  against 
the  nameless  horrours  of  a  servile  insurrection,  they  shall 
have  it." 

The  reader  may  well  ask  with  surprise  if  these  humane  and 
refined  sentiments — and  especially  the  protest  against  the 
"legend  of  infamy"  in  arming  the  Negro — were  uttered  by 
the  same  man  who  now  demands  the  most  extravagant  rewards 
for  the  Negro  for  his  assistance  in  the  war  and  has  tendered 
the  reminiscences  of  his  own  beastly  and  ferocious  cruelty  to 
the  South  as  his  only  title-papers  to  fame.  Unhappily  our 
political  history  abounds  in  these  enormous  self-contradictions 
of  our  public  men  ;  they  have  ceased  to  attract  attention ; 
although  the  intelligent  must  regard  as  the  worst  sign  of  the 
moral  depravity  of  a  people  that  condition  of  public  sentiment, 
in  which  the  inconsistencies  of  leading  men  are  not  only 
tolerated  but  actually  and  positively  rewarded.  The  con 
version  of  such  men  as  Butler  to  the  worst  and  cruellest 
purposes  of  the  war  is  otherwise  interesting  than  in  a  personal 
sense ;  it  shows  the  force  and  direction  of  the  public  sentiment 
on  which  such  creatures  instinctively  fastened  to  save  their 
popularity  and  on  which  they  rode  easily  to  fame  and  fortune. 
The  protest  we  have  quoted  from  Butler  might  have  been  a 
boundary  of  public  opinion  in  the  North,  at  the  time  it  was 
written,  in  the  exact  and  emphatic  language  we  have  quoted ; 

o 


58  RECONSTRUCTION. 

but  that  opinion  soon  marched  across  it  and  developed  a 
ferocity  which  the  Massachusetts  adventurer  found  it  con 
venient  to  adopt,  and  in  the  increase  of  which  he  has  acquired 
all  the  popularity  he  possesses  to-day.  The  Negro  was  first 
armed ;  then  forcibly  emancipated ;  then  used  as  a  partisan 
instrument;  then  made  a  political  master,  where  he  had 
formerly  been  slave,  soldier,  freedman ;  then  and  now  held  up 
as  a  standing  threat,  not  only  of  insurrection  in  the  South, 
but  of  a  war  of  races,  the  most  terrible  exhibition  that  could 
possibly  be  made  in  the  living  age.  These  ascents  in  cruelty 
were  watched  in  the  progress  of  the  war  by  the  people  of  the 
South  with  increasing  anxiety ;  but  they  supposed  that  the 
summit  had  been  attained  at  the  close  of  hostilities,  and  that 
the  list  of  penalties  for  the  past  was  complete. 

What  especially  sustained  the  South  in  her  grief  and  agony 
at  the  end  of  the  war  was  the  instant,  lively  hope  of  the 
restoration  of  the  Union,  and  the  comfort  of  a  speedy 
re-organization  in  it.  It  is  remarkable  that  to  the  last 
moment  of  the  war,  no  one  sanely  doubted  that  a  recon 
struction  of  the  Union  would  be  immediately  consequent  upon 
it,  while  many  people  in  the  South  had  peculiar  hopes  not  only 
of  a  speedy,  but  a  generous  restoration  of  rights.  Eecovery 
of  the  Union  was  the  logical  conclusion  of  the  contest ; 
it  was  the  professed  immediate  object  of  the  arms  of  the  govern 
ment  ;  Congress  had  proclaimed  it,  as  early  as  July,  1861 — on  the 
eve  of  the  battle  of  Manassas ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  had  declared, 
almost  up  to  the  time  of  the  surrender  of  the  Confederate 
armies,  that  the  war  was  for  the  sole  purpose  of  "  restoring 
the  Union."  It  is  curious  that  the  only  anxiety  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  that  this  restoration  might  not  be  expeditious 
enough  after  the  war,  and  that  it  might  be  necessary  to  amend 


RECONSTRUCTION.  59 

the  Constitution  so  as  to  compel  the  Southern  States  to  send 
their  Senators  and  Representatives  to  the  Congress  at 
Washington.  It  is  a  historical  recollection  that  should  be 
carefully  preserved ;  it  is  found  in  a  conversation  which 
President  Lincoln  had  with  Andrew  Johnson,  when  the  latter 
came  to  Washington  to  be  inaugurated  as  Vice-President.* 
It  shows  the  urgent  desire  of  the  former — the  "lamented 
Lincoln" — for  a  speedy  restoration  of  the  Union,  even  to  the 
point  of  compulsion  of  the  South  to  participate  again  in 
the  common  government  of  the  country.  Expedition  in  this 
matter  was  shown  at  his  prominent  desire,  when  after  the 
Federal  occupation  of  Richmond,  he  rode  in  an  open  barouche 
through  the  streets  of  that  city,  scattering  smiles  and  com 
pliments,  giving  audience  and  assurance  to  Richmond  editors, 
pronouncing  peace  and  good-will  everywhere,  and  even  on  the 
point  of  convoking  the  Virginia  Legislature  to  dispatch  the 
ceremony  of  restoration. 

Surely  no  one  then  anticipated  the  "problem"  of  Recon 
struction — that  the  very  object  and  end  of  the  war  was  to  be 
constructed  into  a  devious,  intricate  problem  to  serve  the 
purposes  of  a  political  party,  and  to  defer  the  hopes  of  all  true 
patriots.  The  spectacle  and  situation  to-day  is  :  the  constitu 
tional  re-union  of  the  States  delayed  by  a  political  controversy 
which  threatens  to  last  longer  than  the  war  itself,  and  is  quite 
as  dangerous  \  There  must  be  some  explanation  of  a  condition 
so  unnatural  and  illogical;  this  cheat  of  the  intellect  and 

*  The  conversation  referred  to  is  reported  in  a  speech  of  President  Johnson  made  on  the 
22d  February,  1866.  He  testifies  that  Mr.  Lincoln  said,  speaking  of  the  Southern  States  : 
"  My  great  and  sole  desire  has  been  to  preserve  these  States  intact  under  the  Constitu 
tion,  as  they  were  before ;  and  there  should  be  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  which 
would  compel  the  States  to  send  their  Senators  and  Representatives  to  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States." 


GO  RECONSTRUCTION. 

common  sense  of  the  country  that  considered  the  war  ended 
three  years  ago ;  this  huge  intricate  afterthought  of  Recon 
struction,  on  which  the  South  is  daily  tortured  and  the  whole 
country  hung  in  suspense. 

It  is  'plainly,  essentially  the  afterthought  of  party ;  the 
destructive  device  of  "confusion  worse  confounded,"  in  which 
a  sinister  faction  may  hide  and  accomplish  their  ends;  an 
artificial  necessity  created  for  revolutionary  and  deadly 
designs.  It  is  thus  intelligent  men  of  the  South  esteem  the 
problem  of  Reconstruction.  They  remember  how  slowly  it 
was  invented  by  Congress ;  how  many  delays  and  changes 
took  place  from  December,  1865,  when  the  South  first  present 
ed  the  issue  by  sending  representatives  to  Congress,  until  the 
Radical  plan  was  finally  evolved  in  its  present  shape  of  sub 
jecting  the  South  to  the  probation  of  military  rule,  and  the 
cardinal  condition  of  Negro  supremacy;  how  in  this  long 
interval  of  time  there  were  changes  of  programme  and 
shiftings  of  policy  and  altered  devices  to  the  present  date  of 
the  latest  scheme  of  Reconstruction  and  its  accessories. 
These,  of  themselves,  are  marks  of  party  industry  and 
machinery :  not  evidences  of  a  straightforward  disposition  to 
deal  with  a  plain  and  obvious  necessity.  The  history  of 
Reconstruction  in  Congress  has  been  that  of  the  halting  and 
hesitating  plot  of  faction ;  surely  not  that  of  a  plain  consul 
tation  of  remedies  for  a  simple,  avowed  evil. 

But  for  this  history  we  must  ask  the  separate  and  close 
attention  of  the  reader  before  we  relate  further  the  conditioq 
and  temper  of  the  South, 


RECONSTRUCTION  61 


HISTORY   OF   RECONSTRUCTION. 

Need  of  a  popular  history  of  Reconstruction — Declaration  of  the  objects  of  the  war  in 
1861 — Practice  of  the  war  as  to  "existing  State  institutions" — Cases  of  Tennessee 
and  Louisiana — Three  conditions  of  restoration — President  Lincoln  on  the  "  white 
basis  " — Extraordinary  proposition  of  Congress  to  disfranchise  the  Negro— Reconstruc 
tion  policy  of  President  Johnson — Happy  condition  of  the  country  under  it — Gen. 
Grant's  testimony — Necessity  of  the  Republican  party —  Its  revolutionary  senti 
ment  and  education — Six  months  of  fruitless  debate  in  Congress— Violent  premise 
of  Reconstruction — Dogma  of  forfeited  rights — Constitutional  Amendment,  No  14 — 
Hidden  designs  of  this  measure — Trap  of  Thaddeus  Stevens  on  universal  suffrage — 
A  trick  on  Southern  opinion — President  Johnson's  re-assurances  to  the  South- 
Reconstruction  law  of  March  2nd,  1867 — President's  veto — Gen.  Grant's  interpreta 
tion  of  Reconstruction — History  of  the  Convention  elections  in  the  South — Remark 
able  frauds  in  the  registration — The  attempt  of  Congress  upon  the  President,  as 
part  of  the  Reconstruction  scheme — Analysis  of  this  attempt — Three  violent  meas 
ures — A  historical  remark  on  the  Tenure-of-office  law— The  significance  ol  im 
peachment  of  the  President — Its  logical  identity  with  Reconstruction. 

We  propose  to  write  a  plain  and  popular  history  of  Recon 
struction.  The  subject  needs  such  a  treatment.  It  has  been 
so  complicated  by  the  multitude  of  legislative  measures,  so 
confused  by  debate  that  the  public  has,  in  fact,  lost  all  clear 
and  consistent  information  of  it.  Scarcely  one  in  a  hundred 
men,  even  among  zealous  partisans  and  those  who  talk  busily 
of  Reconstruction  can  give  an  orderly  and  consecutive  narra 
tive  of  the  measures  comprised  in  the  topic.  We  shall  endeav 
our  here  to  give  such  a  narrative,  and  to  disentangle  the  diffi 
cult  web  of  party  ingenuity  and  passion. 

The  narrative  logically  and  justly  commences  with  the  reso 
lution  of  Congress  to  which  we  have  referred  as  adopted  in  the 
first  year  of  the  war.  In  this  resolution,  passed  on  the  19th 
July,  1861,  it  was  proclaimed  to  the  world,  and  immediately 
noticed  to  the  South — 

"  That  this  war  is  not  waged  for  any  purpose  of  conquest  or  subju 
gation,  or  purpose  of  overthrowing  the  Constitutions  of  those  States, 
but  to  defend  and  maintain  the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution,  with 


62  RECONSTRUCTION. 

all  the  rights  of  the  several  States  unimpaired ;  and  that  as  soon  as 
these  objects  are  accomplished  the  war  ought  to  cease." 

The  history  of  this  resolution  is  remarkable  for  the  delibera 
tion  with  which  it  was  accomplished,  and  the  peculiar  emphasis 
it  obtained  from  circumstances.  It  was  the  first  sober  thought 
of  the  war,  the  first  deliberate  judgment  that  emerged  from 
the  confusion  and  extravagance  of  passions  in  which  hostili 
ties  had  commenced.  It  was  also  remarkable  for  its  una 
nimity.  The  resolution  was  adopted  unanimously  by  the 
Senate,  and  there  were  only  two  .dissenting  voices  in  the  House. 
It  was  accepted  by  the  country  as  expressing  honestly  and 
truly  the  object  of  the  war.  It  was  fortified  by  the  practices 
of  the  government,  and  supplemented  by  other  declarations  in 
the  Executive  department.  The  announcement  of  the  war,  as 
to  foreign  nations,  made  through  Mr.  Seward's  dispatches, 
disclaimed  the  intention  of  interfering  with  "  existing  State 
institutions,"  carefully  divested  it  of  a  single  revolutionary 
design  and  industriously  represented  it  as  a  limited  and  inci 
dental  affair  of  arms  that  would  in  no  way  change  the  structure 
of  the  government.  As  the  war  progressed,  the  practice  of  the 
Government  was  that  as  its  armies  advanced  over  the  country 
that  country  immediately  reverted  to  its  old  condition,  and 
was  entitled  to  civil  government,  and  to  be  represented  in 
Congress.  Even  when  it  captured  Alexandria,  and  the  flag 
of  the  insurgents  was  actually  within  sight  of  the  Capitol  at 
Washington,  Congress  received  senators  and  representatives 
from  the  State  of  Virginia,  elected  by  the  people  within  the 
Federal  lines.  As  the  armies  of  the  Government  passed  further 
over  the  South,  there  was  continued  recognition  of  the  legal 
existence  of  the  States  ;  district  attorneys  and  marshals  were 
appointed  ;  revenue  officers  collected  the  tax,  and  it  is  remark- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  63 

able  that  the  Internal  Revenue  laws  describe  as  States  what 
Congress  for  other  purposes  insists  now  as  regarding  as  waste 
and  conquered  territory — willing  to  recognize  these  States  for 
financial  needs  but  not  for  political  rights,  although  the  two 
are  inseparable,  and  their  union  was  consecrated  by  the  blood 
of  1776. 

The  first  essay  of  Reconstruction,  the  first  opportunity  to  test 
and  apply  the  truth  of  the  declaration  referred  to,  dates  from 
the  appointment  of  Andrew  Johnson  as  Military  Governor  of 
Tennessee.  The  situation  then  was  that  the  Government  had 
generally  resolved  to  except  Slavery  from  the  "institutions" 
of  the  Southern  States,  but  in  no  other  respect  to  impair  or 
diminish  the  resolution  of  July  1861.  The  conditions  which 
then  attached  to  restoration  to  the  Union  were  only  those 
which  implied  the  extinction  of  the  war  and  of  the  measures 
peculiar  to  it ;  this  was  the  boundary,  and  beyond  it  no  design 
of  interference  was  ever  breathed  to  suspicion.  The  status  quo 
was  to  be  disturbed  only  to  the  extent  of  abolishing  slavery 
and  terminating  the  war  in  the  sense  of  abandoning  its  polit 
ical  measures  as  well  as  its  arms.  Thus  the  conditions  of  resto 
ration  were  distinctly  named:  that  the  State  should  abolish 
slavery,  should  repeal  the  ordinance  of  secession,  and  should  re 
pudiate  the  rebel  debt.  Congress  never  interfered  with  this 
re-organization  or  reconstruction  of  the  State  of  Tennessee. 
The  policy  was  sustained  by  the  Convention  which  renominated 
Mr.  Lincoln,  and  by  the  party  which  re-elected  him  in  1864. 
The  definition  of  the  policy  was  very  distinct :  it  entertained 
no  design  upon  the  local  affairs  of  the  State,  it  did  not  assume 
to  fix  the  qualifications  of  voters  or  to  form  Constitutions,  it 
had  no  other  care  than  that  those,  who  voted  and  took  part  in 
restoring  the  machinery  of  government  under  their  Constitu- 


64  RECONSTRUCTION. 

tions,  had  fully,  and  to  the  extent  of  all  logical  incidents,  re 
nounced  their  rebellion. 

The  same  policy  was  practically  repeated  in  the  case  of 
Louisiana ;  but  it  is  remarkable  that  at  the  time  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  death  it  was  suspended  by  a  particular  question  that 
had  arisen  between  the  President  and  Congress. 

The  head  of  controversy  was  first  raised  in  the  case  of 
Louisiana ;  it  was  the  first  assumption  of  Congress  to  take  the 
question  6f  Reconstruction  out  of  the  hands  of  the  President. 
But  it  was  an  assumption  of  the  most  limited  nature  and  of  the 
most  curious  effect.  It  is  remarkable  that  whatever  points  of 
difference  there  were  between  the  President  and  Congress  in 
the  case  of  Louisiana,  there  was  then  no  question  as  to  the  poli 
cy  of  Reconstruction  on  the  white  basis ;  and  that  so  far  from 
such  being  the  case,  Congress  expressly  excluded  the  Negro 
from  the  right  of  suffrage  in  voting  for  the  men  who  were  to 
frame  the  new  constitutions  necessary  for  admission  into  the 
Union.  Mr.  Lincoln  refused  to  sign  the  bill  to  this  effect,  for 
other  reasons  than  the  exclusion  of  Negro  suffrage ;  on  this  point 
his  policy  was  coincident  with  that  of  Congress ;  and  had  not 
the  latter  been  checked  as  it  were  by  accidental  circumstances, 
it  would  have  committed  itself,  even  beyond  the  President, 
to  the  policy  of  Reconstruction  on  the  white  basis  and  have 
shut  the  door  to  all  its  later  schemes  of  Negrophilism. 

There  was  no  solicitude  for  the  Negro,  beyond  what  had 
already  been  accomplished  by  Congress  in  setting  him  free. 
"If,"  confesses  a  leading  Republican — Governor  Morton  of 
Indiana—  "  Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  refused  to  sign  that  bill,  there 
would  be  to-day  an  act  of  Congress  on  the  statute-books 
absolutely  prohibiting  Negroes  from  participating  in  the  work 
of  re-organization,  and  pledging  the  Government  in  advance  to 


RECONSTRUCTION.  65 

accept  of  the  constitutions  that  might  be  formed  under  the  bill, 
although  they  made  no  provision  for  the  Negro  beyond  the 
fact  of  his  personal  liberty.  " 

Had  Mr.  Lincoln  lived,  there  is  no  doubt  he  would  have  easily 
triumphed  in  his  policy  of  Reconstruction  and  readily  defeated 
the  small  faction  which  Mr.  Sumner  excited  against  him  in  1865.  * 
He  had  already  routed  whatever  there  was  of  opposition  in  the 
Cleveland  Convention  that  had  so  pretentiously  called  upon 
the  people  "in  thunder  tones  to  come  to  the  rescue  of  impar 
tial  justice  and  universal  freedom."  He  had  already  triumphed 
over  the  protest  of  Wade  and  Davis.  He  jwas  master  of  the 
situation,  and  had  he  been  left  to  command  it,  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  the  faction  which  disturbed  him  a  few 
days  before  ^his  death  would  have  been  crushed  as  a  paltry 
annoyance  to  his  popularity — a  faction  which  profiting  by  acci 
dent  and  the  accretion  of  circumstances  and  the  growth  of 
passions  has  since  assumed  the  dimensions  and  the  insolence 
of  a  dominant  party. 

President  Johnson  directly  inherited  the  policy  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  faithfully  carried  it  out  until  December  1865. 
He  appointed  Provisional  Governors  in  the  Southern  States, 
and  held  out  inducements  to  the  people  to  re-organize  their 
governments,  and  to  restore  as  rapidly  as  possible  their  right 
ful  relations  to  the  Union.  He  even  made  an  addition  to  Mr. 
Lincoln's  policy  in  the  way  of  assuring  the  termination  of  the 
war.  Recognizing  the  cardinal  idea  of  this  policy  to  the  effect 
that  the  people  should  most  fully  renounce  the  ideas  of  the 
rebellion  and  perfect  the  assurance,  that  when  the  Federal 
armies  were  withdrawn,  the  governments  left  behind  should  not 
raise  a  new  rebellion,  he  prescribed  an  oath  of  allegiance  and 
excepted  certain  persons  who  had  been  leading  "rebels"  from 


66  RECONSTRUCTION. 

taking  part  in  the  re-organization.     It  was  the  limit  of  all  real 
solicitude   on   the  subject ;  it  was  a    constitutional  discretion 
/of  the    President,  both  as  the  organ  of  clemency  in  granting 
(   pardon  and  as  the  head  of  the  army  in  judging  and  deciding 
1  when  it   was  proper  to  withdraw  and  disband  it.     This  new 
measure  of  abundant  caution  was  added  to  the  three  conditions 
of  restoration :  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the  repeal  of  the  se 
cession  ordinance,  and  the  repudiation  of  the  rebel  debt ;  and 
it   was  accepted   as   a  logical   part    of  the  scheme  of  Recon 
struction. 

-  Under  this  plain  scheme  as  proposed  by  President  Johnson 
the  country  was  rapidly  quieted ;  public  confidence  and  pros 
perity  grew  visibly  under  it ;  and  a  new  animation  was  impart 
ed  to  the  people  of  the  South.  The  Provisional  Governors 
proceeded  with  the  re-organization  of  the  State  governments 
by  calling  Conventions  to  revise  the  State  Constitutions;  and 
the  inducement  was  held  out  to  the  people  that  a  re-organi 
zation  on  this  plan  would  result  in  a  speedy  resumption  of 
their  electoral  privileges,  for  the  choice  of  State  and  local 
officers,  and  for  the  election  of  representatives  to  Congress  from 
all  the  States.  All  the  conditions  of  restoration  were  per 
formed  with  singular  alacrity  arid  spirit.  State  after  State 
passed  the  required  ordinances ;  and  when  on  the  2nd  of  De 
cember,  1865,  the  legislature  of  Alabama  ratified  the  Anti- 
Slavery  amendment,  Secretary  Seward  announced  with  the 
animation  of  a  great  public  joy  that  the  vote  of  this  State, 
"being  the  twenty-seventh,  fills  up  the  complement  of  two-thirds, 
and  gives  the  amendment  finishing  effect  as  a  part  of  the  or 
ganic  law  of  the  land.  "  The  congratulations  of  the  President 
were  conveyed  by  telegraph.  There  were  indications  of  the 
happiest  feeling;  and  it  appeared  at  one  time  as  if  all  injurious 


RECONSTRUCTION.  67 

and  hateful  recollections  of  the  war  were  about  to  disappear, 
and  a  restoration  of  peace,  the  most  admirable  in  history,  was 
to  give  to  the  world  a  crowning  manifestation  of  the  greatness 
and  generosity  of  the  American  people. 

The  South  had  already  commenced  the  realization  of  an  en 
during  peace ;  industry  was  renewed  in  it,  capital  sought  new 
fields  and  enterprises  in  it,  and  it  was  remarkable  how  all  po 
litical  questions  had  given  way  to  the  renewal  and  ordinary  con 
versations  of  commerce.    It  was  a  comparatively  happy  time  for 
the  country.     In  addresses  to  delegations  from  the  South  and  in 
interviews  with  public  men  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  Pres 
ident  Johnson  had  frequent  occasion  in  the  summer  and  autumn 
of  1865  to  testify  the  success  of  the  policy  he  had  inherited  from 
the  last  part  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  administration,  and  to  impart  his 
confidence  to  the  public  that  it  would  result  in  an  easy,  speedy, 
and  complete  restoration  of  the  Union.     This  confidence  was 
strengthened  by  Gen.  Grant.    He  made  a  tour  of  inspection  thro' 
the  South,  and  the  results  were  officially  communicated  to  the 
effect,  that  he  was  "  satisfied  that  the  mass  of  thinking  men  of 
the  South  accept  the  present  situation  of  affairs  in  good  faith," 
and  that  his  observations  led  him  "  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
citizens  of  the  Southern  States  are  anxious  to  return  to  self- 
government  within  the  Union  as  soon  as  possible."    Under  this 
assurance  prosperity  in  all  parts  of  the  country  improved.     The 
President  could  not  be  suspected  of  partiality  for  a  people  whom 
he  had  been  foremost  to  punish  to  the  full  extent  of  the  war,  or 
of  peculiar  affection  for  a  policy  in  which  he  could  not  claim  the 
merit  of  originality.'    Gen.  Grant  could  not  be  accused  of  dull 
ness  or  of  prejudice,  since  he  was  then  the  popular  idol ;   and 
beyond  the  cheap  sneer  of  Senator  Surnner  that  his  report  was 
a  "  whitewashing  "  one,  it  obtained  the  unlimited  credit  of  the 


68  RECONSTRUCTION. 

people,  and  crowned  the  vindication  of  the  President's  policy. 

In  this  advanced  and  prosperous  condition  of  public  affairs, 
the  Thirty-ninth  Congress  met  in  December,  1865.  The  repre 
sentatives  elect  from  the  Southern  States  were  waiting  with  their 
credentials  at  its  doors.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that  at  this  time 
there  occurred  to  the  Republican  party  in  Congress  the  evident 
diminution  of  their  political  capital,  and  the  obvious  prospect  of 
their  dissolution  as  a  party,  unless  they  could  plant  some  new 
controversy  on  the  way  of  the  admission  of  these  Southern  re 
presentatives  and  the  easy  restoration  of  the  Union  that  would 
be  thereby  effected.  The  wounds  of  the  war  had  been  rapidly 
healed,  and  were  about  being  closed.  Its  animosities  had  greatly 
given  way  to  the  return  of  public  peace.  An  easy  bridge  had 
by  President  Johnson's  policy  been  thrown  over  the  chaotic  in 
terval  that  had  ensued  upon  the  close  of  the  war.  Those  who 
looked  on  the  surface  of  affairs  considered  that  the  Republican 
party  had  exhausted  its  demands ;  it  had  freed  the  Negro,  't 
had  punished  the  "  rebel,  "  and  it  had  obtained  a  guaranty  for 
the  continuance  of  the  Union  by  the  most  solemn  pledges  by 
which  they  could  bind  the  conscience  of  the  people. 

But  this  view,  just  and  obvious  enough,  in  considering  the 
necessities  of  the  country,  misconceived  the  design  of  the  Re 
publicans,  and  did  not  calculate  that  strong  instinct  which  re 
sides  in  every  political  party  to  perpetuate  itself,  and  to  expand 
its  area  of  controversy.  He  who  writes  profoundly  and  phi 
losophically  of  these  critical  times  in  American  history  will  per 
ceive  beneath  the  surface  of  events  the  continuation  of  that 
political  revolution  which  had  been  carried  on  under  cover  of 
the  war,  and  examining  closely  the  further  action  of  the  Repub 
lican  party  will  detect  by  a  thoughtful  diagnosis  that  what  is 
apparently  an  unnatural  fever  is  the  steady  impulses  of  a  logical 


RECONSTRUCTION.  69 

necessity.  The  thought  repeatedly  occurs  to  the  common  mind : 
what  was  the  necessity  of  this  continued  revolutionary  movement 
against  the  Constitution,  since  the  Republican  party  had  ac 
complished  the  abolition  of  Slavery  ? — is  the  Constitution  na 
turally  vicious? — has  it  not,  apart  from  the  subject  of  Slavery, 
otherwise  proved  a  beneficent  system  of  government  ?  The 
answer  is  that  the  necessity  of  this  revolutionary  movement  is 
the  necessity  of  a  party.  When  we  thoughtfully  contemplate 
the  political  history  of  our  country  we  find  that  the  Anti-Slavery 
party  was  necessarily  the  party  of  Consolidation;  to  accomplish 
the  abolition  of  Slavery,  it  was  forced  to  accept  the  theory  of  a 
consolidated  government;  but  the  special  object  accomplished, 
the  idea  survives,  the  force*x>f  a  revolutionary  education  conti 
nues,  and  a  party  impelled  by  such  influences  and  by  the  neces 
sity,  supreme  to  it,  of  continuing  its  organization,  is  not  long  in 
finding  new  measures  with  which  to  engage  public  attention. 

It  was  in  this  thoughtful  attitude,  meditating  this  necessity, 
that  the  Republican  party  stood  in  December,  1865.  It  had 
no  idea  of  approving  the  President's  policy;  but  the  difficult 
question  was  to  invent  measures  of  opposition,  sufficiently  plaus 
ible,  to  a  plan  of  action  that  had  progressed  far  in  public 
favour,  and  had  already  borne  the  most  grateful  fruits.  The 
work  was  commenced  at  once ;  but  we  shall  see  how  long  and 
laboured  it  was.  The  Southern  representatives  were  rejected, 
even  at  roll-call,  when  the  House  was  organized.  A  "Joint 
Committee  on  Reconstruction  "  was  raised,  "to  inquire  into  the 
condition  "  of  the  Southern  States,  and  various  calls  for  inform 
ation  were  made  upon  the  Executive  departments. 

For  six  long,  fruitless  months  this  Committee  sat,  before  it 
relieved  public  curiosity  or  favoured  Congress  with  a  formal 
report.  Its  sessions  were  secret;  but  we  must  suppose  that 


70  RECONSTRUCTION. 

its  invention  was  severely  taxed,  and  its  counsels  greatly  con 
fused,  by  the  number  of  raw  and  unsatisfactory  measures  which, 
from  time  to  time,  emanated  from  it  before  its  final  report  was 
made.  These  measures  were  imperfect  and  conflicting ;  they 
were  scarcely  more  than  sops  to  the  curiosity  which  clamoured 
at  the  door  of  the  "star  chamber  "  for  information  of  its  pro 
ceedings.  First,  Mr.  Stevens  reported  from  it  an  amendment 
to  the  Constitution,  to  the  effect  of  excluding  from  the  basis  of 
representation  all  who  were  denied  the  elective  franchise  "on 
account  of  race  or  colour.  "  The  proposition  was  worried  with 
amendments  and  substitutes,  and  at  last  went  back  to  the 
Committee  without  instructions.  Mr.  Bingham  came  forward 
next,  with  another  Constitutional  amendment,  proposing  to  give 
Congress  the  power  to  make  certain  laws  for  the  government 
of  all  the  States.  It  was  recommitted,  reported  again,  post 
poned  in  the  House  and  never  again  called  up;  "laid  over  "  in 
the  Senate  and  not  again  considered.  A  remarkable  hesitation 
was  evident  in  Congress;  a  hesitation  which  scarcely  belongs 
to  the  consultation  of  any  plain  public  necessity  and  which  is 
irresistibly  suggestive  of  the  embarrassed  counsels  of  party 
expediency. 

At  last,  on  the  18th  June,  1866,  came  the  long-expected 
birth ;  and  on  that  day  there  was  submitted  in  both  Houses  of 
Congress  the  formal  report  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Recon 
struction.  It  is  not  necessary,  here,  to  review  this  formidable 
document  and  its  long  trains  of  argument ;  and  it  suffices  for 
our  narrative  to  place  here  its  conclusion.  It  was  startling 
enough:  that  the  Southern  States  had  "forfeited  all  civil  and 
political  rights  and  privileges  under  the  Constitution!"  It  is 
to  be  remarked  that  the  report  of  the  Committee  recommended 
no  distinct  policy,  that  it  proposed  no  definite  means,  imme- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  71 

diate  or  prospective,  for  the  re-admission  to  representation  of 
the  Southern  States ;  but  its  importance  was,  that  in  the  broad 
proposition  with  which  it  concluded — and  which  was  accepted 
by  a  party  vote  in  each  branch  of  Congress — it  furnished 
sufficient  basis  for  almost  any  extent  of  revolutionary  action 
with  regard  to  the  States  so  summarily  and  entirely  con-  * 
demned. 

*  Congress  had  now  put  under  its  feet  the  ground  of  a  dogma, 
but  it  yet  hesitated  as  to  the  policy  and  form  of  measure  it 
would  construct  upon  it.  A  feeble  minority  had  made  no  issue 
as  to  the  power  of  Congress  to  take  the  subject  of  "Recon 
struction"  out  of  the  hands  of  the  President;  there  was  no 
question  of  jurisdiction;  and  Mr.  Reverdy  Johnson  who  made 
the  minority  report  in  the  House  from  the  Joint  Committee  / 
had  "  not  thought  it  necessary  to  examine  into  the  legality  of  V- 
the  measures  adopted,  either  by  the  late  or  present  President," 
and  had  been  satisfied  to  relieve  their  motives  from  censure  in 
declaring  that  "the  sole  object  of  each  was  to  effect  a  complete 
and  early  union  of  all  the  States.  "  The  situation  now  was, 
that  Congress  had  not  only  reclaimed  control,  complete  and 
exclusive,  of  the  subject  of  "  Reconstruction,"  but  had  also, 
by  accepting  the  report  of  its  Committee,  thrown  off  the  re 
straints  of  the  Constitution,  with  respect  to  ten  States,  and 
had  taken  a  carte  blanche  for  legislation  ! 

The  first  distinct  measure  offered  on  this  settlement  of  prin 
ciples,  and  which,  in  point  of  time,  preceded  the  formal  report 
on  "Reconstruction"  was  Constitutional  Amendment,  No.  14. 
We  give  it  in  the  words,  in  which,  after  an  extraordinary  per 
plexity  of  verbal  amendments,  it  finally  passed  Congress  on 
the  13th  June,  1866 : 


72  RECONSTRUCTION. 


ARTICLE  XIV 

SECTION  1.  All  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States, 
and  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  thereof,  are  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  and  of  the  State  wherein  they  reside.  No  State  shall  make 
or  enforce  any  law  which  shall  abridge  the  privileges  or  immunities 
of  citizens  of  the  United  States ;  nor  shall  any  State  deprive  any  per 
son  of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without  due  process  of  law,  nor  deny 
to  any  person  within  its  jurisdiction  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws. 

SEC.  2.  Representatives  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  several 
States  according  to  their  respective  numbers,  counting  the  whole 
number  of  persons  in  each  State,  excluding  Indians  not  taxed.  But 
when  the  right  to  vote  at  any  election  for  the  choice  of  electors  for 
President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  representatives 
in  Congress,  the  executive  and  judicial  officers  of  a  State,  or  the 
members  of  the  Legislature  thereof,  is  denied  to  any  of  the  male 
inhabitants  of  such  State,  being  twenty-one  years  of  age  and  citizens 
of  the  United  States,  or  in  any  way  abridged,  except  for  participation 
in  rebellion  or  other  crime,  the  basis  of  representation  therein  shall 
be  reduced  in  the  proportion  which  the  number  of  such  male  citizens 
shall  bear  to  the  whole  number  of  male  citizens,  twenty-one  years  of 
age,  in  such  State. 

SEC.  3.  No  person  shall  be  a  senator  or  representative  in  Congress, 
or  elector  of  President  or  Vice-President,  or  hold  any  office,  civil  or 
military,  under  the  United  States  or  under  any  State,  who,  having 
previously  taken  an  oath  as  a  member  of  Congress,  or  as  an  officer 
of  the  United  States,  or  as  a  member  of  any  State  Legislature,  or  as 
an  executive  or  judicial  officer  of  any  State,  to  support  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States,  shall  have  engaged  in  insurrection  or  rebel 
lion  against  the  same,  or  giving  aid  or  comfort  to  the  enemies  thereof. 
But  Congress  may,  by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  each  House,  remove 
such  disability. 

SEC.  4.  The  validity  of  the  public  debt  of  the  United  States  au 
thorized  by  law,  including  debts  incurred  for  payment  of  pensions 
and  bounties  for  services  in  suppressing  insurrection  or  rebellion, 


RECONSTRUCTION.  73 

shall  not  be  questioned.  But  neither  the  United  States  nor  any 
State  shall  assume  to  pay  any  debt  or  obligation  incurred  in  aid  of 
insurrection  or  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  or  any  claim  for 
the  loss  or  emancipation  of  any  slave ;  but  all  such  debts,  obligations, 
and  claims  shall  be  held  illegal  and  void. 

SEC.  5.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce,  by  appropriate 
legislation,  the  provisions  of  this  article. 

We  shall  presently  see  what  designs  lurked  in  this  plausible 
law.  Indeed,  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens  has  recently  exposed  the 
fact  that  the  first  clause  was  designed  to  entrap  Congress  on  the 
subject  of  Negro  suffrage ;  claiming  that  the  declaration  of  the 
citizenship  of  the  Negro  carried  with  it  the  right  of  suffrage  as 
among  those  "privileges  and  immunities"  which  the  State  was 
prohibited  from  abridging.  Whatever  may  be  the  merit  of  this 
claim  (and  we  shall  elsewhere  recur  to  it  in  a  legal  argument 
with  which  we  cannot  now  conveniently  attend  our  narrative), 
it  is  certain  that  it  was  studiously  concealed  in  recommending 
and  perfecting  the  passage  of  the  bill.  It  was  well  known  to 
the  country  that  the  original  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
did  not  define  citizenship ;  questions  in  this  respect  had  been 
raised  on  it;  and  the  object  of  the  Amendment  No.  14,  was  ap 
parently,  in  its  first  clause,  to  supply  an  omission  in  the  origi 
nal  instrument,  to  terminate  a  controversy,  and  to  determine  a 
rule  of  citizenship  in  opposition  to  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  that  the  descendant  of  an  African, 
born  within  the  United  States,  was  not  a  citizen.  It  was  never 
suspected  at  the  time  that  the  words  of  the  Amendment  had  the 
meaning  or  intention  which  Mr.  Stevens  now  ascribes  to  them ; 
that  they  were  designed  thus  readily  to  capture  the  sense  of  the 
country  on  a  subject,  which,  so  far  from  being  an  easy  and  fore 
gone  conclusion,  we  find  in  every  form  of  public  expression  out- 

4 


74  RECONSTRUCTION. 

side  the  Amendment,  occupied  by  the  most  eager  and  passion 
ate  controversy. 

*  But  there  was  another  trick,  another  legislative  device  in 
this  Amendment  more  remarkable.  It  went  for  ratification 
to  all  the  States  as  an  undivided  proposition.  But  there  is  cer 
tain  evidence  that  the  Republican  party  in  Congress,  while  mak 
ing  an  effort  at  sincerity,  had  secretly  determined  to  effect  and 
to  insure  its  rejection  by  the  Southern  States,  with  the  view  of 
using  such  rejection  for  its  own  political  purposes,  and  making 
it  the  occasion  and  excuse  for  additional  measures  of  severity 
towards  the  people  of  the  South.  Such  a  rejection  could  not 
have  been  bettor  been  insured  than  by  the  violent  and  impossi 
ble  condition  inserted  in  the  third  section,  calling  upon  the  peo 
ple  of  the  South  to  disfranchise  and  to  dishonour  all  the  men 
in  whom  they  had  ever  placed  any  public  confidence — all  who 
had  ever  held  any  office,  State  or  Federal.  It  was  really  no 
test  of  the  loyal  sentiment  of  the  South;  for  men,  however  loyal 
to  the  Union,  however  converted  to  a  political  principle,  could 
not  but  see  the  staring  injustice,  the  cowardly  cruelty  of  be 
traying  those  men  especially  whom  they  had  trusted  in  the  past, 
and  of  condemning  them  for  simply  doing  what  they  themselves 
had  done.  In  this  light  the  proposition  was  viewed  in  the 
South  with  an  unanimity,  from  which  was  excluded  all  debate 
as  to  mere  political  concerns.  It  was  a  sentimentalism  above 
all  questions  of  politics.  The  people  were  asked  to  strike  the 
bosoms  of  their  friends  with  a  serpent's  tooth ;  to  give  up  all  the 
tender  and  reverential  memories  of  their  dead ;  to  put  badges  of 
dishonour  on  the  maimed  bodies  of  their  heroes,  men  who,  no 
matter  that  it  was  in  a  lost  and  mistaken  cause,  had  bled  and 
suffered  and  toiled  for  the  mass  of  their  countrymen ;  to  make 
a  vicarious  sacrifice  of  their  best  and  bravest ;  to  pay  the  price 


RECONSTRUCTION.  75 

of  cowardly  safety  in  the  guilt  of  most  unnatural  treachery ! 
The  Republican  party  in  Congress  had  safely  calculated  that 
the  people  of  the  South  were  infinitely  above  such  a  concession 
of  their  affections.  The  very  impossibility  of  the  condition  is 
proof  that  there  was  no  sincere  design  in  offering  it,  that  its  ac 
ceptance  was  neither  expected  nor  desired,  that  it  was  part  of 
a  suspicious  diplomacy. 

There  is  other  proof  of  this.  On  the  8th  June,  in  the 
Senate,  Mr.  Doolittle  made  a  motion  to  allow  the  several  pro 
visions  of  the  Amendment  to  be  separately  submitted  and  voted 
upon.  He  explained  that  the  3d  section  would  inevitably  de 
feat  the  ratification  in  every  Southern  State ;  the  division  he 
proposed  was  a  fair  one  in  a  case  where,  indeed,  there  was  no  log 
ical  connexion,  and  where  the  purpose  should  have  been  to  obtain 
as  distinctly  as  possible  the  sense  of  the  South,  even  at  some 
expense  of  legislative  convenience.  The  motion  was  defeated; 
an  unyielding  majority  adhered  to  what  had  been  plotted  in 
caucus ;  and  the  obnoxious  section  was  left  to  drag  down  the 
whole  measure,  and  to  entrap  the  South  into  what  were  to  be 
violently  taken  as  declarations  of  disloyalty. 

As  thus  foreseen,  the  Amendment  was  rejected  by  the  South 
ern  States ;  besides  the  ten  included  in  the  rebellion,  Kentucky, 
Delaware  and  Maryland  voting  against  it.  Tennessee  was  the 
only  geographically  Southern  State  that  voted  for  it.  From 
the  other  States,  the  two  thirds  vote  necessary  to  ratify  it  was 
obtained,  and  having  become  a  part  of  the  Constitution  it  ap 
peared  to  have  passed  from  public  attention.  Indeed,  after  Ten 
nessee  was  admitted  into  the  Union  (July  24, 1866,)  the  press  ap 
pears  to  have  given  but  little  attention  to  the  further  course  of 
the  Amendment,  beyond  a  stray  and  naked  telegram,  now  and 
then,  announcing  the  vote  of  each  State. 


76  RECONSTRUCTION. 

Meanwhile  President  Johnson,  although  obstructed  in  the 
work  he  had  assumed  in  reorganizing  the  Southern  States,  con 
tinued  in  other  directions,  wherever  his  jurisdiction  applied,  his 
policy  of  conciliation  and  generosity.  He  re-assured  the  people 
of  the  South  by  various  proclamations.  On  the  30th  August, 
1806,  he  issued  a  proclamation  declaring  the  state  of  war  ended, 
and  ci>Ti!  authority  existing  throughout  the  United  States.  A 
few  weeks  later,  he  issued  an 'amnesty  proclamation,  modifying 
the  proclamation  of  May  29, 1865,  wherein  "  fourteen  extensive 
classes  of  persons  were  altogether  excepted  and  excluded  from 
the  benefits  thereof,"  so  that  "the  full  and  beneficent  pardon 
conceded  "  in  that  proclamation  "  should  be  opened  and  further 
extended  to  a  large  number  of  the  persons  who,  by  its  aforesaid 
exceptions,  have  been  hitherto  excluded  from  Executive  clem 
ency.  " 

The  second  session  of  the  Thirty-ninth  Congress  commenced 
on  the  3d  December,  1866.  The  rejection  by  the  Southern 
States  of  "  Constitutional  Amendment",  No.  14,  had  supplied 
the  step  to  a  new  scheme  of  "Reconstruction"  to  which  might 
be  added  a  measure  of  revenge ;  and  on  the  second  day  of  the 
session  the  Committee  on  Territories  was  set  to  work,  on  the 
basis  of  a  resolution  describing  the  South  as  "several  districts 
of  country"  formerly  occupied  by  "the  once  existing  States." 
Several  schemes  were  proposed ;  but  the  general  idea  appears  to 
have  been  maintained  that  the  Amendment  or  its  equivalent 
should  be  forced  upon  the  Southern  States;  and  the  final  result 
was  to  put  it  in  the  aggravated  form  of  the  following  general 
law  of  Reconstruction,  coupling  it  with  the  preliminary  con 
ditions  of  military  rule,  and  the  immediate  concession  of  Negro 
suffrage, — the  most  unconstitutional  and  violent  compulsions  of 
the  popular  will  that  could  be  well  imagined. 


RECONSTRUCTION.  77 

An  Act  to  provide  efficient  government  for  the  insurrectionary  States. 

Whereas,  No  legal  State  government  or  adequate  protection  for  life 
or  property  now  exist  in  the  Rebel  States  of  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Florida, 
Texas,  and  Arkansas ;  and  whereas,  it  is  necessary  that  peace  and  good 
order  should  be  enforced  in  said  States  until  loyal  and  republican  State 
governments  can  be  legally  established ;  therefore 

He  it  enacted,  etc.,  That  said  Rebel  States  shall  be  divided  into 
military  districts  and  made  subject  to  the  military  authority  of  the 
United  States,  as  hereinafter  mentioned ;  and  for  that  purpose  Virginia 
shall  constitute  the  First  District,  North  Carolina  and  South  Carolina 
the  Second  District,  Georgia,  Alabama,  and  Florida  the  Third  District^ 
Mississippi  and  Arkansas  the  Fourth  District,  and  Louisiana  and  Texas 
the  Fifth  District. 

SEC.  2.  That  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  President  to  assign  to  the 
command  of  each  of  said  districts  an  officer  of  the  army  not  below  the 
rank  of  Brigadier- General,  and  to  detail  a  sufficient  military  force  to 
enable  such  officer  to  perform  his  duties  and  enforce  his  authority  with 
in  the  district  to  which  he  is  assigned. 

SEC.  3.  That  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  each  officer  assigned  as  afore 
said  to  protect  all  persons  in  their  rights  of  person  and  property,  to 
suppress  insurrection,  disorder,  and  violence,  and  to  punish  or  cause 
to  be  punished  all  disturbers  of  the  public  peace  and  criminals ;  and  to 
this  end  he  may  allow  local  civil  tribunals  to  take  jurisdiction  of  and 
try  offenders,  or,  when  in  his  judgment  it  may  be  necessary  for  the 
trial  of  offenders,  he  shall  have  power  to  organize  military  committees 
or  tribunals  for  that  purpose ;  and  all  interference  under  colour  of  State 
authority  with  the  exercise  of  military  authority  under  this  act  shall 
be  null  and  void. 

SEC.  4.  That  all  persons  put  under  military  arrest  by  virtue  of  this 
act  shall  be  tried  without  unnecessary  delay,  and  no  cruel  or  unusual 
punishment  shall  be  inflicted,  and  no  sentence  of  any  military  com 
mission  or  tribunal  hereby  authorized,  affecting  the  life  or  liberty  of 
any  person,  shall  be  executed  until  it  is  approved  by  the  officer  in  com- 


78  RECONSTRUCTION. 

mand  of  the  district ;  and  the  laws  and  regulations  for  the  government 
of  the  army  shall  not  be  effected  by  this  act,  except  in  so  far  as  they 
may  conflict  with  its  provisions.  Provided,  That  no  sentence  of  death 
under  this  act  shall  be  carried  into  execution  without  the  approval  of 
the  President. 

SEC.  5.  "When  the  people  of  any  one  of  said  Rebel  States  shall  have 
formed  a  constitution  and  government  in  conformity  with  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States  in  all  respects,  framed  by  a  convention  of 
delegates  elected  by  the  male  citizens  of  said  State,  21  years  old  and 
upward,  of  whatever  race,  colour,  or  previous  condition,  who  have  been 
resident  in  said  State  for  one  year  previous  to  the  day  of  election,  ex 
cept  such  as  may  be  disfranchised  for  participation  in  the  Rebellion  or 
for  felony  at  common  law,  and  when  such  constitution  shall  provide 
that  the  elective  franchise  shall  be  enjoyed  by  all  such  persons  as  have 
the  qualifications  herein  stated  for  electors  of  delegates,  and  when  such 
constitution  shall  be  ratified  by  a  majority  of  the  persons  voting  on 
the  question  of  ratification  who  are  qualified  as  electors  for  delegates, 
and  when  such  constitution  shall  have  been  submitted  to  Congress  for 
examination  and  approval,  and  Congress  shall  have  approved  the  same, 
and  when  said  State  by  a  vote  of  its  Legislature  elected  under  said 
constitution  shall  have  adopted  the  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  proposed  by  the  XXXIXth  Congress,  and  known 
as  Article  14,  and  when  said  article  shall  have  become  part  of  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States,  said  State  shall  be  declared  entitled  to 
representation  in  Congress,  and  Senators  and  Representatives  shall 
be  admitted  therefrom  on  their  taking  the  oath  prescribed  by  law,  and 
then  and  thereafter  the  preceding  sections  of  this  act  shall  be  inopera 
tive  in  said  State.  Provided,  That  no  person  excluded  from  the  privi 
lege  of  holding  office  by  said  proposed  amendment  to  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  shall  be  eligible  to  election  as  a  member  of  the  con 
vention  to  frame  a  constitution  for  any  of  said  Rebel  States,  nor  shall 
any  such  person  vote  for  members  of  such  convention. 

SEC.  6.  Until  the  people  of  the  said  Rebel  States  shall  by  law  be  ad 
mitted  to  representation  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  all  civil 
governments  that  may  exist  therein  shall  be  deemed  provisional  only, 
and  shall  be  in  all  respects  subject  to  the  paramount  authority  of  the 
United  States,  at  any  time  to  abolish,  modify,  control,  and  supersede 


RECONSTRUCTION.  79 

the  same,  and  in  all  elections  to  any  office  under  such  provisional 
governments  all  persons  shall  be  entitled  to  vote  under  the  provisions 
of  the  fifth  section  of  this  act.  And  no  person  shall  be  eligible  to  any 
office  under  such  provisional  governments  who  would  be  disqualified 
from  holding  office  under  the  provisions  of  the  third  article  of  said  Con 
stitutional  Amendment. 

This  extraordinary  law  was  passed  on  the  2nd  March,  1867. 
A  second  or  Supplemental  act,  relating  mainly  to  the  regis 
tration  of  voters,  referred  to  in  the  5th  section,  was  passed 
March  23d,  1867,  at  the  first  session  of  the  Fortieth  Congress; 
and  a  third  or  Explanatory  act  was  passed  July  19th,  1867,  at 
an  extra  session,  in  effect  declaring  that  the  military  govern 
ment  over  the  ten  States  was  to  have  unlimited  authority  over 
the  Courts,  and  over  all  the  offices  of  the  State,  legislative, 
executive  and  judicial. 

There  was  thus  absolutely  erected  in  ten  States  a  mode  of 
vice-royal  rule  outside  of  the  Constitution.  In  a  veto  mes 
sage  of  surpassing  intellectual  power  the  President  pointed 
out  the  despotism,  the  political  purpose  and  the  unconstitu 
tionally  of  the  law  of  the  2nd  March.  He  summed  his  objec 
tions  in  this  remarkable  sentence :  "I  submit  to  Congress 
whether  this  measure  is  not,  in  its  whole  character,  scope 
and  object,  without  precedent  and  without  authority,  in  palpa 
ble  conflict  with  the  plainest  provisions  of  the  Constitution, 
and  utterly  destructive  to  those  great  principles  of  liberty  and 
humanity  for  which  our  ancestors  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlan 
tic  have  shed  so  much  blood  and  expended  so  much  treasure." 

The  history  of  the  execution  of  this  law  is  as  yet  incom 
plete.  We  may  say,  however,  generally  that  it  has  afforded  an 
example  of  unlimited  power,  such  as  the  modern  world  has 
seldom  known.  "  The  law,"  says  Gen.  Grant,  "  makes  the 


80  RECONSTRUCTION. 

district  commanders  their  own  interpreters  of  their  power  or 
duty  under  it ;  and,  in  my  opinion,  the  Attorney  General  ot 
myself  can  do  no  more  than  give  our  opinion  of  the  meaning 
of  the  law."  Each  commander  has  placed  his  own  construc 
tion  upon  the  acts  of  Congress  ;  and  we  may  imagine  how 
illimitable  is  the  assumption  of  authority,  how  petty  and  inva 
sive  is  the  tyranny  when  we  find  it  carried  to  the  length  of  an 
order  forbidding  the  police  of  a  city  to  wear  gray  uniform, 
and  another  forbidding  the  distillation  of  grain. 

But  the  most  remarkable  thing  in  the  history  of  this  vice- 
royal  rule  in  the  South  is  the  manipulation  of  elections ;  the 
frauds  in  registration ;  the  injustice  of  the  apportionment, 
which,  with  a  large  white  majority  in  all  the  States,  so  ar 
ranged  the  districts,  as  to  insure  a  majority  to  the  Negroes  in 
the  Conventions  called  to  frame  the  organic  law.  The  general 
nature  of  our  narrative  admits  no  more  than  a  summary  view 
of  the  outrage.  It  is  well  known  that  there  is  a  large  pre 
ponderance  of  white  population  in  all  of  the  excluded  States  ; 
yet  the  registration  process  produced  the  result  of  the  political 
ascendancy  of  the  Negro  throughout  most  of  them.  In  Flori 
da,  where  the  whites  by  the  last  census  were  77,747  to 
62,637,  the  registering  officers  allowed  4,733  whites  and  9,388 
blacks  to  vote.  In  Georgia,  notwithstanding  forty  thousand 
whites  of  that  State  had  been  disfranchised,  it  still  had  a  reg 
istered  majority  of  about  two  thousand  whites  ;  yet  the  districts 
were  so  laid  out  as  to  allow  93,417  blacks  to  elect  192  dele 
gates  and  95,303  whites  to  elect  65  delegates  to  the  State 
Convention.  In  Alabama,  the  majority  of  the  blacks  in  the 
registration  was  15,561,  and  the  number  of  blacks  enrolled 
showed  an  increase  of  over  90,000  since  1860.  In  Texas 
there  was  a  black  majority  of  10,000,  though  the  census  of 


RECONSTRUCTION,  81 

1860  showed  420,891  whites  to  183,021  blacks.  In  Louisiana, 
where  Gen.  Banks  at  the  close  of  the  war  reported  the  blacks 
had  fallen  off  one-fourth,  the  registers  footed  up  82,  907  blacks, 
which  taking  the  usual  ratio  of  population  to  voters  in  that 
State  exhibits  an  increase  of  193,000  blacks  in  seven  years,  or 
fully  fifty-five  per  cent.  In  Virginia,  where  the  whites  had 
13,000  registered  majority,  the  apportionment  of  districts  was 
so  made  that  in  46  districts  the  whites  had  a  majority  and  in 
59  the  blacks  had  a  majority,  giving  a  black  majority  in  Con 
vention  of  thirteen.  These  facts  are  important  as  a  remark 
able  array  of  evidence  of  a  steady  and  unscrupulous  design  to 
Africanize  the  South,  and  after  torturing  it  with  military  law 
to  pass  it  to  the  control  of  the  Negro.  Military  rule  and  Negro 
supremacy  become  the  short  definition  of  "Reconstruction."* 

*  We  may  place  here  the  proceedings  of  the  Supremo  Court  properly  episodical  to 
Reconstruction. 

1.  A   petition  on  behalf  of  the   States  of  Georgia  and  Mississippi  for  an  injunction  to 
1-estrain  the   President  and  district  commanders  from  carrying  out  the  provisions  of  the 
Reconstruction  laws.     Adverse  decision  April  15th,  1867  ;  Chief  Justice  Chase   deliver 
ing  the  opinion  of  the  court,  maintaining  the  impropriety  of  interference,  and,  generally, 
that  an  injunction  against  the  execution  of  an  act  of  Congress  by  the  incumbent  of  the 
Presidential  office  cannot  be  received,  whether  it  describes   him  as   President,  or  simply 
as  a  citizen  of  a  State.     Motion  for  leave  to  file  a  bill,  therefore,  dismissed. 

2.  A  bill  in  which  the   State  of  Georgia  is  complainant  against  Edwin  M.  Stanton, 
Ulysses  S.  Grant,  and  John  Pope.    Leave  was  granted  to  file  the   bill  nem.  con.,  and 
subpoenas  have  been  issued. 

3.  "The  McCardle  case."    Appeal  from  the  Circuit  Court   of  Mississippi  dismissing 
habeas  corpus  and  remanding  the  prisoner  to  the  military  authority.     He  had  been  origi 
nally  arrested  by  a  military  order  and  tried  by  a  military  commission  on  specifications 
of  having  obstructed  the  Reconstruction  laws  and  slandered  a  military  officer  of  the 
United  States,  etc.  in  certain  criticisms  in  a  newspaper  which  the  prisoner  published  in 
the  town  of  Vicksburg.     The   case  was  brought  before  the  Circuit  Court  on  a  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  ;  but  the  court  decided  it  had  no  jurisdiction,  and  the  prisoner  was  re 
manded.     On  these  facts  the  case  came  before  the   Supreme   Court,   was   elaborately 
argued,  but  was  finally  ordered  over  to  the  next  term.     Whereupon  the  following  pro 
test  was  signed  by  Judge  Grier,  a  member  of  the  Court : — "  The  case  was  fully  argued  in 
the  beginning  of  this   month"  (March,  1868).  "  It  is  a  case  which   not  only    involves  the 
liberty  and  rights  of  the  appellant,  but  of  millions  of  our   fellow-citizens.     The  country 
had  a  right  to  expect,  it  would  receive  the  immediate  and  solemn  attention  of  the  court 
By  the  postponement  of  this  case,  this  court  has  subjected  itself,  whether  justly  or  uu- 

4-* 


b2  RECONSTRUCTION. 

But  we  are  occupied  in  this  place  only  with  a  narrative  of  the 
events  which  fill  in  the  scheme  of  Reconstruction ;  and  to  com 
plete  this  narrative,  we  must  pass  to  a  new  series  of  measures. 
We  refer  to  that  train  of  acts  of  Congress  by  which  it  has 
sought  to  fetter  the  President  of  the  United  States,  to  annul 
all  possible  efforts  at  interference  or  obstruction  by  the  Executive 
authority  with  respect  to  ten  States  of  the  Union,  and  to  impair 
BO  far  the  constitutional  functions  of  his  office.  This  attempt 
upon  the  President  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  Congressional 
scheme  of  Reconstruction;  it  has  moved  at  equal  pace  with  it; 
and  running  with  the  measures  already  referred  to,  has  been  a 
series  of  outrages  and  usurpations  upon  his  authority.  They 
are  summarily  stated  as  follows — 

1.  A  bill,  which  became  a  law  in  January,  1867,  repealing 
the  13th  section  of  the  Act  of  July  17th,  1862,  authorizing 
the  President  by  proclamation  "to  extend  to  persons  who  may 
have  participated  in  the  existing  rebellion  *  *  pardon  and  am 
nesty." 

justly,  to  the  imputation  that  it  had  evaded  the  performance  of  a  duty  imposed  upon  it 
by  the  Constitution,  and  awaited  for  legal  interposition  to  supersede  its  action,  and 
relieve  it  of  responsibility.  I  have  only  to  say,  Pudet  Jioc  opprolrio,  licet  non potuisse 
repelli,  or  literally  translated,  '  I  am  ashamed  such  an  opprobrium  should  be  cast  upon 
the  court,  and  that  it  cannot  be  refuted.'  " 

The  common  explanation  of  the  postponement  is  that  the  Supreme  Court  was  gener 
ally  supposed  to  have  reached  a  decision  in  the  McCardle  case,  prior  to  the  Impeach 
ment  proceeding's,  and  from  the  known  inclination  of  a  majority  of  the  court  it  was  be" 
lieved  that  the  decision,  when  promulgated,  would  be  adverse  to  the  constitutionality  of 
the  military  governments  in  the  South.  The  Radicals  contemplated  the  possibility  of 
such  a  result,  a  nd  regarded  it  with  great  alarm.  They  viewed  it  with  exclusive  refer, 
ence  to  its  effect  upon  the  coming  Presidential  election,  and  very  justly  with  great  ap 
prehension.  It  would  have  been  simply  a  condemnation  of  the  policy  of  Congress — a 
declaration  from  the  highest  legal  authority  that  the  whole  system  of  Radical  Recon. 
struntion  was  illegal  and  unconstitutional.  A  resort  was,  therefore,  had  to  legislation, 
ignoring  the  Supreme  Court  so  far  as  its  jurisdiction  might  affect  Radical  Reconstruction 
The  law  was  passed,  vetoed,  passed  over  the  veto ;  and  it  was  this  enactment,  the  con 
stitutionality  of  which  was  to  have  been  argued.  The  McCardle  case  had  been  fully 
argued  and  submitted  for  decision,  and  the  delay  in  the  promulgation  of  its  ultimatum 
is  what  Judge  Grier  pronounces  the  evasion  of  a  duty  imposed  by  the  Constitution. 


RECONSTRUCTION.  83 

2.  An  Act,  March  2, 1867,  virtually  depriving  the  President 
of  his  constitutional  functions  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the 
Army.  It  provides  that  the  head-quarters  of  the  General  of 
the  army  shall  be  at  Washington,  and  all  orders  and  instruc 
tions  relating  to  military  operations  issued  by  the  President  or 
Secretary  of  War  shall  be  issued  through  the  G-eneral  of  the 
army,  and,  in  case  of  his  inability,  through  the  next  in  rank ; 
that  the  General  of  the  army  shall  not  be  removed,  suspended, 
or  relieved  from  command,  or  assigned  to  duty  elsewhere  than 
at  said  head-quarters,  except  at  his  own  request,  without  the 
previous  approval  of  the  Senate ;  and  any  orders  or  instruc 
tions  relating  to  military  operations  issued  contrary  to  the  re 
quirements  of  this  section  shall  be  null  and  void ;  and  any 
officer  who  shall  issue  orders  or  instructions  contrary  to  the 
provisions  of  this  section  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  a  misde 
meanor  in  office  ;  and  any  officer  of  the  army  who  shall  trans 
mit,  convey,  or  obey  any  orders  or  instructions  so  issued 
contrary  to  the  provisions  of  this  section,  knowing  that  such 
orders  were  so  issued,  shall  be  liable  to  imprisonment  for  not  less 
than  two  nor  more  than  twenty  years,  upon  conviction  thereof 
in  any  court  of  competent  jurisdiction. 

*/  3.  What  is  popularly  known  as  "the  Tenure  of  Office  Bill,  " 
passed  March  2, 1867.  By  this  law  the  President  is  forbidden 
to  remove  from  office  those  appointed  by  him,  with  the  advice 
and  consent  of  the  Senate,  unless  the  Senate  consent  to  such 
removal,  and  it  is  made  a  high  misdemeanor  for  him  to  appoint 
others  in  their  places,  or  for  such  others  to  accept  said  appoint 
ment. 

It  has  been  remarked  especially  of  this  last  extraordinary 
law  that  the  question  of  the  power  of  removal  had  been  settled, 
as  early  as  1789,  in  the  first  Congress  under  the  Constitution ; 


84  RECONSTRUCTION. 

that,  when  the  Department  of  State  was  created,  a  declaratory 
clause  was  inserted  in  the  bill  of  affirmation  that  this  power 
was  vested  in  the  President ;  and  that  Congress  repeated  the 
decision  or  legislative  construction  twice  afterwards  in  creating 
executive  departments.  The  point  was  made  in  the  unavailing 
veto  of  the  President ;  but  we  do  not  design  to  introduce  ar- 
gument  here,  and  have  merely  mentioned  it  as  a  part  of  the 
history  of  the  law  of  1867. 

In  looking  at  these  three  measures,  the  reflection  at  once  oc 
curs  to  the  reader,  that  besides  being  a  subordinate  part  of  the 
scheme  of  Reconstruction,  they  amount  to  a  revolutionary  de 
sign  upon  the  cardinal  and  vital  distribution  of  powers  in  our 
system  of  government.  At  a  later  date  the  attempt  upon  the 
President  traced  in  these  measures — diminishing  the  preroga 
tive  of  pardon,  taking  from  him  the  control  of  the  army,  and 
impairing  his  duty  to  see  that  the  laws  are  "faithfully  execu 
ted,"  by  cutting  off  the  power  of  removal  incidental  to 
that  duty — has  progressed  to  the  extremity  of  Impeachment. 
It  is  an  unbroken  sequence ;  Impeachment,  so  far  from  a 
distinct  incident,  being  the  logical  fruit  of  the  whole  tenour 
and  spirit  of  Reconstruction,  that  point  to  which  a  consistant 
revolutionary  purpose  has  steadily  mounted. 

We  are  aware  that  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  wrest  Im 
peachment  from  its  proper  historical  connection,  to  dissociate 
it  from  Reconstruction,  and  to  misrepresent  it  as  an  event  of  no 
practical  consequence,  designing  a  mere  change  of  Presidents, 
after  which  the  government  might  resume  its  routine,  and  the 
country  take  up  the  thread  of  its  daily  cares  as  before.  But 
we  abstain  from  argument  here,  reserving  it  for  another  place  in 
this  work,  where  we  shall  have  occasion  to  describe  Impeach 
ment  as  something  more  than  a  spectacular  drama  at  Washing- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  85 

ton.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  of  it  in  this  place,  that  the  interest  of 
the  revolutionary  movement  that  has  taken  the  name  and  pre 
tences  of  Reconstruction  has  culminated  at  this  point ;  and  we 
conveniently  terminate  here  what  was  designed  as  a  task  of  pure 
narrative.  With  patient  detail  we  have  given  over  the  histo 
ry  of  Reconstruction; — the  abundant  commentary  on  it  we  re 
serve  for  other  places,  and  shall  put  under  appropriate  heads. 


THREE  NOTABLE   ARGUMENTS. 

The  three  arguments  for  the  Reconstruction  scheme  of  Congress — Senator  Sumner's  early 
discovery  of  "  dead  States  " — A  clear  and  fundamental  proposition — Decision  of  Jus 
tice  Sprague  of  Massachusetts — Estoppel  of  Congress  from  the  doctrine  of  State  forfei 
ture — Important  decision  of  Chief  Justice  Chase  on  the  North  Carolina  Circuit — The 
argument  of  a  "  conquered  country" — Extract  from  an  English  statesman — "  Occu- 
patio  Itellica  " — The  Constitutional  guaranty  of  a*  Republican  form  of  government — 
Senator  Sumner's  ignorance  of  history — Analysis  of  the  Constitution  with  respect  to 
suffrage — The  general  argument  for  universal  suffrage — lleceut  declamations  of 
Thaddeus  Stevens — A  logical  reply  to  them— Universal  suffrage,  as  meaning  Negro 
suffrage  for  the  South — A  brutal  mockery  of  republicanism. 

The  arguments  to  sustain  that  new  political  system,  of  which 
we  have  already  given  the  history,  are  scattered  through  debates 
in  Congress,  through  various  proceedings  in  the  Supreme  Court, 
and  through  daily  expressions  of  a  partisan  press.  We  know 
that  the  public  mind  has  been  strained  and  confused  by  this 
multitude  of  arguments,  and  the  diversity  of  the  channels 
through  which  they  have  found  expression.  We  think  it  in 
teresting,  therefore,  to  collect  them,  to  put  them  in  order,  and  to 
pass  them  in  review.  We  propose  to  do  so  in  a  popular  way. 
We  shall  avoid  the  prolix  methods  of  the  mere  lawyer ;  and  wo 
shall  take  care  not  to  annoy  the  reader  by  that  puerile  style  of 
numerical  arguments,  the  ambition  of  which  is  to  make  of  its 
subject  the  largest  number  of  divisions  and  subdivisions.  Then. 


86  RECONSTRUCTION. 

are  plainly  not  more  tlian  three  general  heads  of  the  argument 
and  when  we  have  reviewed  them,  we  have  traversed  the  whole 
field  of  the  controversy. 

1.  We  have  the  argument  that  the  Southern  States  and  their 
people  forfeited  their  rights  by  the  rebellion. 

2.  We  are  entertained  by  the  theory  that  these  States  have 
been  reduced  by  the  war  to  conquered  territory,  and  that  Con 
gress  may  govern  them  by  the  right  of  conquest. 

3.  We  are  told  that  the  United  States  are  bound  to  guarantee 
a  republican  form  of  government  to  every  State  in  the  Union, 
and  are  in  the  exercise  of  that  power  with  respect  to  the  Southern 
States  in  the  present  scheme  of  "  Reconstruction.  " 

From  these  three  points  we  may  stake  out  the  boundaries  of 
the  whole  field  of  discussion,  and  complete  our  popular  survey 
of  the  question.  We  believe  that  all  that  has  been  said  or  writ 
ten  on  Reconstruction  may  be  placed  without  violence  under 
the  arguments  we  have  noted,  and  that  when  we  have  completed 
these  we  have  arrived  at  a  fair  and  sufficient  conclusion  on  the 
subject. 

The  first  of  these  arguments  is  the  earliest  in  the  history  of 
the  discussion,  and,  indeed,  dates  from  the  commencement  of 
the  war.  Its  first  appearance  was  in  a  loose  passionate  language 
threatening  the  belligerent  rebels,  and  scarcely  attracting  atten 
tion  at  the  time  but  as  a  display  of  declamatory  rhetoric.  It 
was  of  a  piece  with  those  avowals  of  vengeance  growing  out  of 
the  heat  of  the  war,  and  too  readily  supposed  to  be  mere  excla 
mations  of  passion.  When  during  the  war  an  intemperate  Re 
publican  declared  in  Congress  that  the  war  should  "  make  a 
pathway  of  desolation  fron  the  Potomac  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  ;  " 
when  another  was  for  "  crushing  "  his  erring  countrymen  as 
"  infernal,  damnable  fiends  ;  "  when  another  recommended  that 


RECONSTRUCTION.  87 

the  "  rebels  "  should  be  treated  "  as  devils — not  only  their  per 
sonal  goods,  and  their  lives,  but  the  fee  simple  of  their  lands 
be  taken  from  them;"  and  when  yet  another  said  that  neither 
South  Carolina,  Georgia  or  Florida  "  should  re-appear  in  the 
Union ;  let  these  States  be  set  apart  as  a  home  for  the  Negro  !" — 
but  few  of  the  public  were  disposed  to  accept  these  expressions 
in  a  serious  and  literal  sense,  or  to  esteem  them  more  than  the 
exaggerated  utterances  of  hate.  But  in  this  frenzy  lurked  a 
"method  of  madness,"  and  from  these  wild  expressions  grew 
the  monstrous  idea  which  the  Republican  party  has  since  deliber 
ately  advanced,  to  the  effect  that  the  Southern  States  having 
forfeited  their  rights  in  the  war  are  left  with  no  other  govern 
ment  than  the  punitive  will  of  Congress.  It  is  interesting  to 
observe  how  this  splutter  of  malice  has  at  last  arranged  itself 
into  the  serious  form  of  argument. 

We  find  it  first  reduced  to  an  orderly  proposition  by  Senator 
Sumner  and  announced  in  a  series  of  resolutions  introduced  by 
him  in  the  United  States  Senate,  February,  1862,  to  this  effect: 
that  a  vote  of  secession  from  the  Union,  sustained  by  force, 
"  becomes  a  practical  abdication  by  the  State  of  all  rights 
under  the  Constitution ;  while  the  treason  which  it  involves  ./ 
still  further  works  an  instant  forfeiture  of  all  those  functions  X 
and  powers  essential  to  the  continued  existence  of  the  State  as 
a  body  politic,  so  that  from  that  time  forward  the  territory 
falls  under  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  Congress  as  other 
territory,  and  the  State,  being,  according  to  the  language  of 
the  law,  felo-de-se,  ceases  to  exist.  "  Since  this  rhetorical 
accumulation  of  Mr.  Sumner,  public  attention  has  been  diver 
ted  by  a  number  of  captious  and  convenient  phrases  to  indicate 
this  singular  decease  of  the  "rebel"  States.  We  have  had, 
indeed,  a  plentiful  supply  of  catch-words  on  the  subject.  Sen-  ' 


88  RECONSTRUCTION. 

ator  Wilson  makes  a  short  cut  to  the  doctrine  of  his  colleague 
in  the  words  "dead  States.  "  Further  we  are  told  of  "State 
abdication,"  "State  forfeiture,"  "State  suicide,"  "the  lapsing 
of  States  into  territories,  "  etc.  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens,  with 
the  unsightly  effort  of  age  at  a  brutal  and  malicious  joke,  thus 
paraphrases  Reconstruction  :  "  Congress  passed  an  act  author 
izing  waste  Territories  of  the  United  States  to  form  Consti 
tutions,  if  possible,  so  as  to  make  them  fit  to  be  associated  with 
civilized  communities.  " 

The  one  argument  on  which  all  these  conceits  of  language 
are  strung  is  that  the  Southern  people  are  outlaws,  having  for 
feited  their  rights,  even  those  of  local  government,  by  the  act  of 
withdrawing  from  the  United  States.  The  argument  is  so  vio 
lent  and  excessive  as  to  carry  its  own  refutation  with  it  and  to 
destroy  itself  by  the  mere  force  of  its  declaration.  It  is  in  fact 
saying  that  because  the  "rebel  "  States  denied  the  right  of  the 
Federal  government  to  keep  them  in  the  Union,  that  therefore 
that  right  did  not  exist,  and  that  they  have  really  and  practi 
cally  accomplished  "  Secession  "  in  continuing  out  of  the  Union 
despite  the  decision  of  the  war  and  the  virtue  of  the  Federal 
arms .  The  mere  statement  of  such  a  case  in  the  form  of  a 
question  should  be  decisive  of  the  answer.  The  supposition 
of  "dead  States,  "  "States  out  of  the  Union,  "  is  essentially 
and  unavoidably  either  the  admission  of  the  legal  virtue  of 
Secession,  or  the  claim  that  Congress  has  the  right  to  expel 
States  from  the  Union  ! 

There  is  one  thought  which  firmly  fixed  in  the  mind  gives  a 
clear  view  of  the  whole  subject  of  Reconstruction  and  rescues 
from  confusion  its  entire  multitude  of  issues.  It  is  simply 
that  the  Government  has  acquired  no  r,iew  political  power  by  the 
war,  that  in  respect  of  its  power  and  constitutional  authority  it 


RECONSTRUCTION.  89 

\ 

is  the  stone  continuous  government  that  it  was  before  the  war. 
In  such  c^se  says  Mr.  Justice  Sprague  of  Massachusetts,  "  the 
nation  acquires  no  new  sovereignty,  but  merely  maintains  its 
previous  rights.  Under  our  Government  the  right  of  sover 
eignty  over  any  portion  of  a  State  is  given  and  limited  by 
the  Constitution,  and  will  be  the  same  after  the  war  as  it  was 
before.  "  *  The  language  of  this  judicial  decision  has  the 
merit  of  explicitness,  and  for  this  may  please  the  reader ;  but 
it  is  unnecessary  as  an  addition  by  way  of  argument  to  what  is 
not  only  morally  a  truism,  but  is  to  be  found  in  the  very  bodj 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  We  find  that  the 
Constitution  prohibits  even  the  nation  from  depriving  any 
State  of  its  "equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate;"!  and  in  view  of 
this  provision,  how  can  the  assumption  be  held  that  Congress 
may  expel  States  from  the  Union,  or  even  exercise  an  extra 
ordinary  and  despotic  rule  over  them ! 

Since,  then,  the  Government  has  acquired  no  addition  of  sov 
ereignty,  no  new  political  power  by  the  war,  and  since  further 
more  its  relations  to  the  States  and  power  over  the  States  are 
limited  by  the  Constitution,  we  are  safely  left  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  can  neither  expel  nor  diminish  a  State,  without  viola 
ting  the  organic  law  or  incurring  the  guilt  of  usurpation. 

It  is  curious  to  notice  what  inconsistencies  have  been  mixed 
with  the  absurdities  of  this  doctrine  of  the  death  or  diminution 
of  the  Southern  States  by  forfeiture  of  their  rights  on  account 
of  their  rebellion.  In  various  acts  of  Congress  assuming  these 
States  to  be  still  within  the  Union,  it  has  made  a  deliberate 
and  accumulated  estoppel  to  the  doctrine  that  they  are  exclu 
ded,  or  that  they  have  not  subsisting  valid  State  governments. 

*  Case  of  Amy  Warwick,  24  Law  Rep.  decided  at  one  of  the  terms  of  1862 
I  Article  V. 


90  RECONSTRUCTION. 

Even  during  the  war  Congress  repeatedly  legislated  xbr  them 
as  States  still  within  the  Union,  and,  in  1862,  by  the  apportion 
ment  bill  gave  each  of  these  States  their  proper  proportion  of 
representatives  in  the  national  legislature.  At  the  close  of  the 
war  it  yet  more  strongly  committed  itself;  and  in  receiving  the 
ratification  of  the  Constitutional  Amendment  abolishing  Sla 
very  by  the  legislatures  of  the  Southern  States,  it  recognized 
them  as  exercising  the  very  highest  legislative  functions  in  our 
political  system  and  performing  an  act  of  supreme  importance. 
Yet  this  act  is  invalid  on  the  supposition  that  the  Southern 
States  were  not  in  the  Union,  for  the  ratifications  of  at  least 
three  of  them  had  to  be  counted  to  carry  the  amendment ;  and 
the  consequence  is  that  Slavery  has  never  been  constitutionally 
extinguished  and  that  there  is  no  guaranty  that  it  may  not  be 
reclaimed  and  re-established.  To  such  absurdities  are  we 
forced  by  the  doctrine  of  deader  decayed  States,  having  no  right 
of  representation  in  the  Union,  and  no  political  existence  but 
as  the  subject  of  despotic  will. 

We  have  thus  rapidly  gone  over  the  first  and  capital  ground 
of  the  Republican  party  in  the  scheme  of  Reconstruction,  with 
the  arguments  suggesting  themselves  to  a  plain  mind.  These 
arguments,  however,  are  assisted  from  an  unexpected  quarter. 
Happily,  on  the  subject  we  have  been  considering,  there  is  the 
light  of  a  distinct  judicial  decision,  the  force  and  importance  of 
which  appear  to  have  been  but  little  appreciated  in  the  poli 
tical  controversy,  or  in  the  popular  discussion.  A  ruling  made 
by  Chief  Justice  Chase,  sitting  at  Raleigh,  North  Carolina,  in 
June,  1867,  has,  after  a  strange  neglect,  recently  been  brought 
to  public  attention,  and  is  found  to  be  a  clear  and  irrevocable 
decision  of  the  inviolability  of  the  Union,  and  of  the  present 
residence  of  all  the  States  in  it  in  their  original  character  and 


RECONSTRUCTION.  91 

condition.     The    essential    part    of  the  opinion  of  the  Chief 
Justice  is  thus  stated : 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  State  of  North  Carolina,  by  the  acts 
of  the  Convention  of  May,  1861,  by  the  previous  acts  of  the  Governor 
of  the  State,  by  subsequent  acts  of  all  the  departments  of  the  State 
Government,  and  by  the  acts  of  the  people  at  the  election  held  after 
May,  1861,  set  aside  her  State  Government  and  Constitution,  and 
connected  under  the  National  Constitution  with  the  Government  of 
the  United  States,  and  established  a  Constitution,  and  Government, 
connected  with  another  pretended  Government  set  up  in  hostility  to 
the  United  States,  and  entered  upon  a  course  of  active  warfare  against 
the  National  Government ;  nor  is  there  any  doubt  that,  by  these  acts, 
the  practical  relations  of  North  Carolina  to  the  Union  wrere  suspended, 
and  very  serious  liabilities  incurred  by  those  who  were  engaged  in 
them. 

"  But  these  acts  did  not  effect,  even  for  a  moment,  the  separation  of 
North  Carolina  from  the  Union,  any  more  than  the  acts  of  an  indi 
vidual  who  commits  grave  offences  against  the  State  by  resisting  its  offi 
cers  and  defying  its  authority,  can  separate  him  from  the  State." 

It  thus  appears  that  the  ordinances  and  other  acts  of  seces 
sion  on  the  part  of  the  Southern  States,  in  the  words  of  the 
Chief  Justice,  merely  "suspended"  "the  practical  relations  " 
of  these  States  to  the  Union.  This  "suspension,"  having 
been  caused  by  these  ordinances  and  acts,  ceases  when  they 
are  annulled  by  the  war,  and  therefore  the  prior  relations  of 
these  States  are  restored,  and  they  are  entitled  to  all  the 
privileges  of  the  Union  and  bound  by  all  its  obligations.  In 
addition  to  what  is  quoted  above,  the  Chief  Justice  expressly 
repudiates  the  doctrine  that  the  "insurgent  States,  by  the  act 
of  rebellion,  and  by  levying  war  against  the  nation,  became 
foreign  States."  Then  if  not  foreign  States,  they  must  have 
been  States  of  the  Union;  nothing  has  occurred  since  the 
war  to  change  their  character ;  therefore  they  must  be  such 


92  RECONSTRUCTION. 

States  now.  The  whole  argument  at  last  is  reduced  to  this 
simple  syllogism  and  the  conclusion  is  as  inviolable  as  it  is 
plain. 


*  We  advance  to  the  second  argument  of  the  Republicans. 
And  the  moment  we  confront  it,  an  odious  phrase  seizes 
attention  and  excites  our  suspicion.  The  world  has  outlived 
those  convenient  words  of  tyranny  grown  out  of  violent  and 
barbarous  times — a  "  conquered  country  !  "  It  is  remarkable 
how  peculiarly  these  words  have  been  used  to  justify 
oppression,  and  to  disguise  the  rod  of  the  tyrant  in  the  robe 
of  the  conqueror.  It  is  memorable  as  the  precise  argument 
which  Great  Britain  used  for  the  oppression  of  our  fathers ; 
the  pretence  which  the  celebrated  Blackstone,  to  the  lasting 
injury  of  his  great  legal  reputation,  furnished  to  Charles  II. 
for  abusing  and  grinding  the  American  Colonies.  America 
was  a  "conquered  country,"  and  therefore  at  the  merciful 
disposition  of  the  Crown !  The  dishonour  of  this  plea  has 
alone  survived  wherever  it  has  been  made.  It  did  not  serve 
to  exculpate  England  in  her  oppression  of  the  Colonies,  or  in 
her  later  maltreatment  of  Ireland.  We  are  told  by  a  recent 
historian  that,  when  arbitrary  government  was  planted  in 
Ireland,  there  were  those  in  the  British  Parliament  who 
excused  it  because  the  Irish  were  a  conquered  nation ;  where 
upon  there  was  this  exclamation  on  the  part  of  a  distinguished 
statesman:  "They  were 'a  conquered  nation  !':>  cries  Pym. 


RECONSTRUCTION.  93 

"  There  cannot  be  a  word  more  pregnant  and  fruitful  in  treason 
than  that  is.  There  are  few  nations  in  the  world  that  have 
not  been  conquered,  and  no  doubt  the  conqueror  may  give 
what  law  he  pleases  to  those  that  are  conquered  ;  but  if  the 
succeeding  acts  and  agreements  do  not  limit  and  restrain  that 
right,  what  people  can  be  secure  ?  England  hath  been 
conquered,  and  Wales  hath  been  conquered,  and  by  this 
reason  will  be  in  little  better  case  than  Ireland.  If  the  king, 
by  the  right  of  a  conqueror,  gives  laws  to  his  people,  shall 
not  the  people  by  the  same  reason  be  restored  to  the  right  of 
the  conquered,  to  recover  their  liberty,  if  they  can?  " 

The  argument  of  the  English  statesman  is  full  of  sense  and 
humanity.  But  the  disgraced  plea  which  the  Congress  at 
Washington  applies  to  its  scheme  of  Reconstruction  in  the 
South,  even  if  it  could  be  just  in  any  circumstances,  is  wholly 
inappropriate  here ;  there  is  no  case  of  the  conqueror ;  and  it 
is  impossible  to  force  an  analogy  between  one  nation  over 
coming  another,  and  a  government  merely  recovering  its  own 
territory  and  re-asserting  its  authority  over  its  own  subjects. 
The  plea  is  so  absurd  and  incoherent  that  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  engage  it  in  serious  argument.  The  idea  of 
conquest  by  a  Government  of  its  own  territory  borders  on  the 
ridiculous.  Again  we  quote  from  that  decision  of  Judge 
Sprague,  to  which  we  have  already  referred :  "No  nation  ever 
makes  conquest  of  its  own  territory.  If  a  hostile  power, 
either  from  without  or  from  within,  takes  and  holds  possession 
and  dominion  over  any  portion  of  its  territory,  and  the  nation 
by  force  of  arms  expels  or  overthrows  the  enemy  and  suppresses 
hostilities,  it  acquires  no  new  title,  but  merely  regains  the 
possession  of  which  it  had  been  temporarily  deprived." 

Absurd  as  is  the  plea  which  applies  the  rule  of  conquest  to 


94  RECONSTRUCTION. 

a  civil  war,  we  are  aware  there  is  a  legal  refinement  of  it 
which  has  obtained  a  certain  attention.  The  air  of  subtlety 
is  the  natural  one  of  absurdity,  and  nonsense  readily  takes 
refuge  in  a  confusion  of  ideas.  Thus,  we  are  told,  that  throwing 
out  the  consideration  of  the  rule  of  conquest,  the  Government 
has  yet  the  right  of  hostile  -  "occupation  "  in  the  Southern 
States,  and  that  Congress  may  therefore  take  their  affairs  into 
its  hands.  But  this  argument  is  really  inferiour  to  that  of 
conquest,  as  the  greater  includes  the  less;  for  the  "  occupatio 
lellica"  contained  in  the  right  of  conquest  is  the  lesser  right, 
and  they  fall  together.  If  after  the  war  the  army  of  the 
United  States  remains  in  the  South,  it  is  yet  no  hostile 
occupation  in  a  legal  sense ;  and  though  we  freely  admit,  that 
it  may  quell  insurrection  and  keep  the  peace  in  its  neighbour 
hood,  we  utterly  deny  that  even  in  a  case  of  utter  anarchy  it 
could  force  institutions  upon  the  country.  The  distinction  is 
obvious  between  an  affair  of  police  and  a  usurpation  of  power 
to  the  extent  of  seizing  the  government  of  a  country  and 
dictating  its  political  institutions.  "What  right,"  says  a 
distinguished  advocate,  speaking  at  the  bar  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  in  a  recent  case  of  individual  oppression  under  the 
Reconstruction  laws,  "  has  the  army  of  a  sovereign  occupying 
his  own  territory,  when  every  hostile  force  is  subdued,  to  take 
in  its  own  hands  the  government  of  the  country  by  a  right 
paramount  to  the  antecedent  right  ?  " 


RECONSTRUCTION.  95 

We  come  to  the  third  argument :  that  the  guaranty  in  the 
Constitution  of  a  republican  form  of  government  justifies  the 
claim  of  Congress  and  imposes  upon  it  the  duty  to  intervene 
in  the  governments  of  the.  Southern  States,  and  especially  to 
regulate  the  right  of  suffrage  therein.  This  argument,  if  it 
did  not  originate  with  Senator  Sumner,  has  yet  been  most 
industriously  displayed  by  him,  and  in  his  hands  has  taken 
the  form  of  a  bill  to  regulate  suffrage  in  all  the  States, 
without  regard  to  property,  race  or  colour. 

It  is  strange,  indeed,  that  a  member  of  Congress,  who  claims 
to  represent  peculiarly  the  cultivation  and  scholarship  of  his 
party,  and  who  prides  himself  on  the  abundance  and  accuracy 
of  his  historical  illustrations,  should  have  fallen  into  an  errour 
especially  deplorable  for  its  ignorance  of  the  commonest  texts 
in  our  political  annals.  The  school-boy  even  knows  that,  at 
the  date  of  the  Constitution,  the  States  then  existing  were 
considered  republican  forms  of  government;  and  if  Mr. 
Sumner  had  turned  to  his  dictionary,  he  might  readily  have 
found  that  to  "guarantee"  means  to  warrant  something 
already  existing.  The  meaning  of  the  clause  was  stated  by 
Mr.  Madison,  and,  writing  in  one  of  the  numbers  of  "  The 
Federalist,"  he  distinctly  explained  that  "it  supposes  a  pre 
existing  government  of  the  form  which  is  to  be  guaranteed." 
It  could  have  had  no  other  meaning.  In  the  history  of  the 
language  in  which  it  was  prepared,  the  intent  was  yet  more 
manifest;  one  shape  of  the  proposition  being — "that  a 
republican  constitution  and  its  existing  laws  ought  to  be 
guaranteed  to  each  State  by  the  United  States."  The  words 
were  cut  down  or  reduced,  and  with  a  mere  verbal  change 
consulting  brevity,  the  proposition  was  accepted  as  it  now 
stands — "that  the  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every 
State  a  "epublicau  form  of  government."  If  any  doubt 


96  RECONSTRUCTION 

existed  as  to  what  was  a  "  republican  form  of  government,  " 
it  was  clearly,  necessarily,  to  be  decided  by  that  form  which 
each  State  possessed  at  the  date  of  the  Constitution,  and 
which  it  was  designed  to  secure  as  against  all  monarchical  and 
aristocratical  innovations. 

No  one  then  supposed,  no  one  for  eighty  years  following  the 
Constitution  supposed,  that  this  clause  was  designed  to  give  to. 
Congress  power  to  interfere  with  suffrage  in  the  States,  and 
that  a  restricted  suffrage  was  to  be  taken  for  a  negation  of  a 
"republican  form  of  government."  According  to  such  a  test, 
the  governments  of  Virginia  and  Massachusetts  were  not 
republican  when  they  came  into  the  Union ;  and,  indeed,  all  the 
States  at  that  time  demanded  "reconstruction,"  as  it  is  a 
remarkable  fact  that  in  all  of  them  age,  residence,  sex  and  a 
property  qualification,  were  required  of  electors.  Indeed, 
according  to  this,  even  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
would  not  be  a  republican  form  of  government,  since  it 
possesses  no  power  over  the  elective  franchise,  and,  on  the 
contrary,  leaves  it  to  be  regulated  by  the  governments 
subordinate  to  itself — the  States.  The  only  clause  of  the 
Constitution  which  relates  at  all  to  the  subject  of  suffrage  is 
that,  in  the  choice  of  representatives,  the  electors  shall  have 
"  the  qualifications  requisite  for  electors  of  the  most  numerous 
branch  of  the  State  Legislature."  The  States  were  left  to 
regulate  the  franchise  for  themselves. 

For  eighty  years  the  country  has  acquiesced  in  the  opinion 
that  the  State  governments  were  republican,  and  Congress  has 
slept  upon  its  supposed  duty  of  providing  for  such  change  in 
the  government  of  each  State  as  would  make  it  republican  in 
the  estimation  of  Mr.  Sumner.  That  person  has  suddenly  in 
terposed  to  contradict  the  assumption  of  our  fathers  that  the 


RECONSTRUCTION.  97 

States  which  formed  the  Union  enjoyed  republican  forms  of 
government ;  and  proposes  to  interrupt  their  continuance  in  that 
enjoyment  by  admitting  Congress  to  interfere  with  suffrage, 
even  to  the  extent  of  forming  a  Constitution  for  a  State  !  The 
true  question,  it  is  to  be  practically  observed,  is  not  whether 
universal  suffrage  may  or  may  not  be  a  necessary  element  in 
the  republican  form  of  government ;  but  whether  our  fathers 
thought  so,  since  thei  ssue  is  as  to  the  meaning  of  a  particular 
clause  in  the  Constitution  and  not  as  to  the  merit  of  a  general 
proposition.  And  on  this  point,  we  repeat,  we  have  the  decisive 
rule  that  the  design  of  this  clause  was  to  guarantee  the  exist 
ing  governments  of  the  States,  none  of  which  permitted  uni 
versal  suffrage. 

But  that  question  settled,  the  restriction  of  the  Constitution 
determined,  we  are  even  not  unwilling  to  admit  to  general  reason 
ing  the  proposition  that  universal  suffrage  is  a  necessary  condition 
of  a  republican  government.  We  know,  that  public  attention 
has  been  caught  on  this  subject  by  some  shallow  platitudes, 
some  "  glittering  generalities,  "  about  the  natural  rights  of  man 
to  defend  himself  in  society,  and  the  ballot  being  a  necessity  of 
his  political  existence  as  a  freeman.  But  the  question  is 
wholly  mis-stated  in  these  broad  declamations  of  the  demagogue. 
Some  recent  froth  from  the  lips  of  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens  is 
'an  example  of  what  extravagances  and  absurdities  may  pass 
unrcbuked  in  a  senseless  clamour  of  patriotism  and  vague  ap 
peals  to  history.  In  a  speech  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
March  19, 1868,  he  declared  :  "  We  have  reached  a  period  when 
we  may  speak  of  universal  suffrage,  not  as  a  boon,  not  as  a  gift, 
but  as  an  inalienable  right,  which  no  man  dares  to  take  away, 
and  which  no  man  can  surrender.  His  Grod  has  forbidden  it  ; 
the  science  of  government  has  forbidden  it,  and  henceforth  let 

5 


98  RECONSTRUCTION. 

us  understand  that  universal  suffrage  operating  in  favour 
of  every  man  who  is  to  be  governed  by  the  votes  cast,  is  one  of 
those  doctrines  planted  deeper  than  the  granite  in  which  our 
fathers  laid  the  foundation  of  their  immortal  work — the  work 
of  universal  liberty  which  will  last  just  as  long  as  that  im 
mortal  doctrine  shall  last,  and  no  longer  "  ! ! 

The  points  of  exclamation  are  our  own,  and  are  well  deserved. 
The  mistake,  the  wretched  nonsense  of  Mr.  Stevens  is  in  con 
sidering  as  a  natural,  inherent  right,  a  privilege  which  grows 
wholly  out  of  the  condition  of  society,  and  is  governed  by  its 
concerns.  The  suffrage  is  conceded  to  those  who  are  adjudged 
capable  of  exercising  it,  and  this  judgment  is  determined  in  the 
discretion  of  the  legislative  power.  Those  who  are  incapable 
by  nature  of  fulfilling  functions  of  citizenship  cannot  be  forced 
to  exercise  them  without  detriment  to  society  as  well  as  to  them 
selves.  This  is  the  plain  rule,  and  is  of  the  very  frame  of  society. 
Republican  governments  may  be  more  or  less  democratic ;  but 
it  is  a  singular  fact,  that  no  government  has  ever  existed  in 
the  world  in  which  universal  suffrage  has  prevailed !  Such  a 
government  would  be  simply  the  surrender  of  all  its  worth  and 
intelligence  to  an  accident  of  numbers.  In  our  political  system , 
the  tendency  has  always  been  to  the  enlargement  of  suffrage — 
a  tendency  the  effects  of  which  have  been  the  corruption  of 
elections,  the  lowering  of  the  standards  of  public  life  and  that 
evil  which  one  of  the  most  popular  and  robust  of  modern  thinkers 
(John  Stuart  Mill)  deplores  as  the  especial  affliction  of  America  : 
the  raising  of  questions,  for  the  purpose  of  founding  parties  upon 
them.  But  decided  as  has  been  this  tendency  to  extend  the 
elective  franchise,  our  government  has  judged  that  there  were 
persons  within  the  limits  of  its  jurisdiction  who  were  incapable 
of  exercising  all  the  functions  of  citizenship ;  that  women,  that 


RECONSTRUCTION.  99 

unnaturalized  foreigners,  that  youths  of  undeveloped  minds 
should  not  assume  as  a  right  what  from  their  very  incapacity 
would  be  detrimental  to  themselves  as  well  as  to  the  public  in 
terest.  It  is  of  very  care  of  them  that  the  government  keeps 
them  in  the  condition  of  political  minors.  They  are  protected 
by  the  general  intelligence  and  humanity  of  the  laws ;  and  in 
the  case  of  the  Negro,  this  protection  has  been  assured  and  mul 
tiplied  by  special  stitutes,  and  even  by  a  burcau'-solely  designed 
for  his  benefit. 

We  are  not  disposed  to  expend  argument  on  a  truism.  But 
there  is  a  single  consideration  which  cuts  under,  the  whole  doc 
trine  of  universal  suffrage,  and  which  does  not  appear  to  have 
obtained  yet  the  attention  of  the  disputants.  The  right  to  vote- 
and  the  right  to  be  voted  for  are  equal  and  correlative.  If  we 
admit  the  right  of  universal  suffrage,  we  must  annul  all  the  quali 
fications  to  hold  office.  We  must  repeal  all  those  various  laws, 
Federal,  State,  and  Municipal  which  require  age,  residence, 
property  qualifications,  etc.,  for  public  office.  We  must  either 
involve  ourselves  in  this  general  and  ruinous  license ;  or  we 
must  require  qualifications  at  both  ends  of  the  line — for  the 
voter  as  well  as  the  officer.  The  alternative  is  severe,  and  can 
not  be  avoided. 

Upon  the  closest  reflection,  we  can  discover  no  flaw  in  this 
argument.  It  is  as  neat  as  it  is  novel.  If  we  admit  fully  the 
right  of  the  Negro  to  vote,  then  we  cannot  diminish  his  right 
'  to  be  voted  for,  or  to  ascend  to  any  offices  within  the  gift  of 
the  ballot.  More  than  this,  if  we  are  to  take  universal  suffrage 
as  the  test  of  "republicanism,  "  after  the  school  of  Mr.  Sum- 
ner,  then  we  must  carry  the  reform  to  the  extent  of  nullifying 
all  qualifications  for  office,  such  as  age,  residence,  property,  etc., 
and  rooting  from  the  State  Constitutions  an  entire  series  of 


100  RECONSTRUCTION. 

fundamental  laws.  These  qualifications  are  empirical  and 
unsound  on  the  admission  of  universal  suffrage,  and  must  give 
way  in  logical  sequence.  A  reform  to  this  extent  has  probably 
not  been  practically  contemplated  by  the  Radicals  in  Congress; 
but  a  party  which  prates  so  much  of  logical  necessities,  and 
preaches  the  virtue  of  the  sequitur,  is  under  especial  obligations 
to  follow  its  doctrines  to  their  legitimate  conclusions. 

Leaders  of  the  Radical  party,  with  professions  of  Negro 
suffrage  hot  in  their  mouths,  have  been  sending  advices  to 
Southern  Conventions  that  Negroes  should  not  run  for  Congress, 
or  aspire  to  any  conspicuous  office  ;  that  they  should  be  satisfied 
to  fill  the  lowest  seats  in  political  synagogues.  They  are  to  vote 
as  much  as  they  please,  but  not  to  be  voted  for.  It  is  an  insult 
even  to  the  low  intelligence  of  the  Negro  to  abuse  him  thus, 
and  make  him  an  unrewarded  instrument  of  the  ambition  o{ 
white  politicians.  It  is.  a  unilateral  citizenship,  as  offensive 
to  the  instincts  of  justice  as  to  the  law  of  logic.  If  we  are  to 
concede  universal  suffrage,  we  must  perfect  it  by  universal 
license  to  office  ;  it  is  only  the  first  step  of  a  reform  that  must 
proceed  to  universal  demoralization,  to  the  cheapening  of  all 
offices,  to  a  wild,  unrestrained,  vehement  competition  in  political 
life  that  will  leave  nothing  good  or  desirable  in  it. 

But  beyond  the  general  considerations  of  this  doctrine  of 
universal  suffrage  there  is  a  peculiar  excess  in  Mr.  Sumner's 
application  of  it  to  the  Southern  States.  It  is  a  mockery 
added  to  absurdity,  the  former  as  arch  and  fiendish  as  the 
latter  is  flagrant  and  flippant.  Universal  suffrage  means  foi 
the  South  Negro  suffrage ;  and  the  method  of  enforcing;  it, 
with  the  preliminary  conditions  of  martial  law  and  other  ma 
chinery  of  Reconstruction,  is  of  the  very  essence  of  despotism. 
Whatever  doubt  there  may  be  as  to  the  meaning  of  a  "  repub- 


RECONSTRUCTION  101 

lican  form  of  government,"  it  certainly  and  necessarily  implies 
self-government  by  the  people  of  a  State  ;  and  the  most  ad 
venturous  dealer  in  political  fancies  would  scarcely  venture 
the  assertion  that  the  form  of  government  dictated  by  Congress 
to  accomplish  Negro  suffrage  in  the  South  was  republican  or 
self-government.  The  guaranty  of  a  republican  form  of  gov 
ernment  is  practically  violated  under  pretext  of  its  fulfillment, 
and  is  made  to  mean  a  power  in  Congress  to  impose  upon  a 
State  a  government  that  is  not  republican  !  The  South  is 
mocked,  by  calling  the  attempt  to  institute  tyranny  over  her 
the  guaranty  of  a  republican  government  and  by  giving  the 
name  of  kindness  to  insult  and  injury.  This  derision  might 
at  least  been  spared  a  suffering  people.  No  device  was  needed. 
The  wrong  might  have  been  done  with  the  bold  and  accus 
tomed  declarations  of  villainy — at  least  without  the  effrontery, 
the  brutal  mockery  of  the  highwayman  who  pretends  a  kindly 
and  protecting  care  for  the  effects  of  the  traveler,  while  rifling 
his  pockets,  and  leaving  him  to  misery  and  despair. 


102  RECONSTRUCTION, 


A    SPECIAL    CONSOLATION. 

The  Radical  party  vindicating  the  action  of  the  South  in  the  late  war — A  new  interpre 
tation  of  "  Copperheads" — Speech  of  George  H.  Pendleton — Two  wars  since  1860: 
one  for  the  Union,  the  other  for  the  Constitution — President  Lincoln's  plea  of  neces 
sity—Precedents  of  1776  and  1812— Reasons  for  the  war  on  the  Constitution— Extract 
from  an  English  publicist— Identity  of  the  Two  Rebellions,  1776  and  1861— Extra 
ordinary  declaration  of  President  Johnson — Prophecy  of  the  "  lost  cause  regained." 

Regarding  the  chain  of  unconstitutional  acts  which  Congress 
has  accomplished  since  the  war,  there  is  one  great  consolatory 
idea  for  the  South,  which  scarcely  appears  to  have  been  devel 
oped  in  the  current  commentaries  of  the  press.  It  is  the 
logical,  inevitable  tendency  of  such  proceedings  to  vindicate 
the  past  war  ;  to  suggest  that  constitutional  liberty  was  really 
in  issue  in  it,  since  the  Republican  party  has  made  such  use  of 
its  success,  and  the  victors  have  unmasked  such  opinions  and 
purposes ;  and,  finally,  to  exhibit  the  South,  instead  of  fight 
ing  in  an  odious  rebellion,  engaged  in  a  noble  and  admirable 
contest,  not  unlike  that  of  1776.  This  idea  was  imperfectly 
apprehended  in  the  war,  but  now  obtains  fuller  exposition,  a 
more  complete  developement  in  the  political  sequel.  There 
were  men  during  the  war  loosely  called  "  Copperheads,"  whose 
inclination  to  the  South  was  much  more  intelligent  than  the 
ordinary  sympathies  with  that  combatant ;  who  had  obtained 
the  idea  that,  independently  of  the  issue  of  the  Union,  was  a 
great,  underlying  struggle  of  constitutional  law  and  traditional 
liberty,  and  that  Robert  E.  Lee,  in  that  sense,  was  fighting  his 
battles  for  the  North,  as  well  as  for  the  South  !  This  idea 
was  far  above  the  vulgar  recriminations  of  party,  the  common 
reproach  of  disloyality,  "  secession  proclivities,  etc. ;"  it  was 


RECONSTRUCTION.  103 

harboured  by  a  few  intelligent  persons,  who  indignantly  re 
pelled  the  charge  of  community  of  sentiment  with  Secession 
ists  and  Southern  sympathizers,  and  constantly  asserted  their 
attachment  to  the  Union,  along  with  their  dissent  from  the 
Republican  party. 

These  men  were  misunderstood  by  both  sections  ;  and  the 
author  well  recolleqts  how  confused  were  the  regards  of  the 
South  for  War  Democrats  of  the  McClellan  and  Pendleton 
school.  But  their  idea  has  recently  been  enlightened  ;  and 
thoughtful  men  have  already  discovered  that  the  past  war  had 
the  significance  of  a  political  revolution,  as  well  as  that  of  a 
specific  contest  for  the  Union.  Every  historical  crisis  has  its 
particular  occasion,  and  the  tendency  of  the  common  mind  is 
to  dwell  on  this  occasion,  to  occupy  itself  with  the  mere  visible 
outward  event.  Thus  in  the  late  war  there  were  many  who 
concerned  themselves  wholly  for  the  Union,  and  sunk  every 
other  consideration  in  anxiety  for  its  restoration.  They  did 
not  conceive  that  superiour  significance  of  the  contest,  that  is 
now  so  apparent ;  they  did  not  understand  that  the  constitu 
tional  liberty  of  the  whole  country  was  imperiled  ;  they  did 
not  understand  that,  going  on  under  the  forms  of  rebellious 
arms,  there  was  a  continuation  of  the  great  political  struggle 
of  1776. 

When  George  H.  Pendleton*  of  Ohio  stood  in  conspicuous 
opposition  in  Congress  to  its  series  of  war  measures,  he  con 
cluded  one  of  his  orations  with  this  fine  burst  of  eloquence  :— • ' 
"  When  your  work  shall  be  accomplished,  when  our  Constitu- 


*  With  reference  to  this  remarkable  representative  of  the  Democratic  party  during-  the 
war,  the  author  has  nad  recent  occasion  in  a  biographical  article  to  describe  his  political 
opinions. 

"The  chief  historical  interest  of  Mr.  Pendleton's  life  attaches  to  his  course  in  Congress 
during  the  late  war,  wherein  he  was  the  conspicuous  representative  of  a  class  or  division 


104  RECONSTRUCTION. 

tion  is  dead,  when  our  liberties  are  gone,  when  our  Government 
is  destroyed,  when  these  States — no  longer  held  secure  in  their 
proper  position  by  the  power  of  our  matchless  Constitution,  so 
that  they  emulate  in  accordant  action  the  stars,  as  by  the 
divine  decree  they  encircle  in  their  mysterious  courses  the 
foot-stool  of  the  eternal  throne,  and  extract  from  the  harmony 
of  conflicting  elements  the  true  music  of  the  spheres — shall 
have  given  place  to  States  discordant,  dissevered,  belligerent, 
to  a  land  rent  with  civil  feuds,  and  drenched  in  fratricidal 
blood,  history  will  hold  its  dread  inquest,  and  in  the  presence 
of  appalled  humanity  will  render  judgment,  that  base  and. 
degenerate  children,  deserting  the  teachings  of  their  fathers, 
deserting  the  teaching  of  the  past,  departing  from  the  ways  of 
pleasantness  and  peace,  rebelling  against  the  wisdom  and  be- 

of  opinion  that  has  suffered  much  from  misrepresentation,  and  that  claims  a  peculiar  and 
searching  review.  It  was  then  the  convenient  fashion  of  the  Republican  party  to  call  all 
who  dissented  from  them,  "Copperheads,"  and  under  this  venomous  term  aggregate  all 
the  elements  ,'of  opposition.  The  classification  was  as  illogical  as  it  was  violent ;  for  it 
cannot  escape  the  candid  judgment  that  the  grounds  of  dissent  from  the  policy  of  tho 
Republicans  in  the  past  war  were  of  the  rrrost  various  character.  There  were  those  who 
sympathized  with  the  South  in  a  sectional  sense  ;  there  were  others,  who  were  merely 
compassionate,  and  while  admitting  the  South  to  be  in  errour  thought  her  hardly  and 
cruelly  punished;  there  were  sentimentalists  and  humanitarians;  but  apart  from  all 
these  was  a  distinct,  firm,  intelligent  party,  which,  asserting  the  inviolability  of  the  Union, 
and  voting  men  and  means  to  vindicate  it,  was  yet  constantly  for  separating  the  war  from 
an  attempt  upon  the  Constitution,  and  drawing  the  line  between  an  appeal  to  arms  for  a 
specific  issue  and  a  political  revolution  involving  the  laws  and  traditions  of  the  country. 
The  ground  of  this  party  was  very  high ;  it  suffered  reproach,  North  and  South,  from 
misrepresentation  ;  but  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  the  intelligent  men  of  the  South  during 
the  war,  valued  its  dissent  from  the  reigning  policy  at  Washington  much  more  than  open 
protestations  of  sympathy  from  another  class  of  "  Copperheads, "  in  proportion  as  it  was 
more  intelligent,  more  permanent,  and  even  more  effective,  because  more  moderate,  in 
vindication  of  the  principles  which  rested  at  the  bottom  of  the  contest." 

"'The  Union'  was  serviceable,  as  the  outward  event  or  occasion  usually  is  in  any 
historical  crisis,  to  inspire  the  populace  and  seize  its  imagination.  Mr.  Peudleton  acknowl 
edged  this  inspiration ;  he  knew  and  confessed  the  value  of  the  Union  ;  but  he  was  unwil 
ling  in  contesting  it  to  assault  the  Constitution;  he  saw  that  Lincoln  and  his  party  wore 
"  running  the  machine  "  in  the  double  groove  of  a  political  revolution ;  and  he  proposed, 
however  ineffectually,  to  confine  the  war  to  its  avowed  objects,  and  to  contain  it  as  far 
as  possible  within  the  limits  of  the  Constitution.  This  is  the  whole  explanation  of  his 
course  in  Congress." 


RECONSTRUCTION.  105 

neficence  of  the  Almighty,  with  hearts  filled  with  pride,  and 
souls  stained  with  fanaticism  and  passion,  struck  the  matricidal 
blow,  and  at  the  same  moment  indignant  and  outraged  Heaven 
wreaked  upon  them  the  just  retribution  of  their  terrible  and 
nameless  crime." 

Briefly,  there  were  those  who  had  a  realization  of  two  wars 
— the  war  against  the  Union  and  the  war  against  the  Consti 
tution.  The  attempt  to  conceal  the  latter  was  this 
wretched  argument :  that  the  infringements  on  the  Constitu 
tion  were  mere  affairs  of  necessity  in  the  war,  that  there  was 
no  design  upon  that  instrument,  further  than  some  temporary 
violations,  to  impart  an  extraordinary  vigour  to  hostilities. 
We  give  this  argument  in  its  best  shape  in  a  notable  declara 
tion  made  by  President  Lincoln,  in  1864: — "  I  felt  that  meas 
ures,  otherwise  unconstitutional,  might  become  lawful  by 
becoming  indispensable,  to  the  preservation  of  the  Constitution, 
through  the  preservation  of  the  nation."  The  fallacy  capti 
vated  the  vulgar  ;  but  to  the  intelligent  it  was  a  dogma  as 
violent,  as  it  was  shallow.  They  recognized  the  "  indispensable 
means  "  suggested  by  the  party  in  power  as  a  sum  of  despot 
ism  :  the  extinction  of  liberty,  of  free  speech,  of  free  press,  of 
free  ballot,  of  jury  trial,  of  habeas  corpus ;  the  subjection  of 
private  property  to  arbitrary  seizure  and  confiscation ;  the 
practice  of  arbitrary  arrest  and  imprisonment,  secret  trial  and 
punishment ;  the  violation  of  private  contracts  by  "  legal 
tender  "  laws  ;  the  erection  of  a  huge  system  of  conscription  ; 
the  passage  of  ex  post  facto  laws  and  bills  of  attainder  ;  the 
supremacy  of  the  military  over  the  civil  power. 

Was  this  despotic  machinery  necessary  to  carry  on  the  war, 
or  was  it  something  apart  from  it,  a  distinct  concern  ?  Happi 
ly,  the  American  people  had  had  two  great  wars  preceding 
5* 


106  RECONSTRUCTION. 

that  of  1861— the  war  of  1776  and  of  1812;  and  it  could  not 
but  occur  to  the  recollections  of  those  persons  who  had  any 
knowledge  of  history,  that  in  neither  of  these  had  the  Gov 
ernment  found  it  necessary  to  adopt  any  of  the  measures 
referred  to  by  the  modern  Republican  party  as  indispensable 
in  a  state  of  war.  Mr.  Jefferson  declared  as  the  great  merit 
of  Washington  that  he  "scrupulously  obeyed  the  laws  during 
his  whole  career,  civil  and  military."  An  equal  encomium  is  due 
Madison.  Both  Presidents  had  conducted  the  nation  through 
great  and  critical  wars  ;  but  neither  had  ever  suspended  the 
civil  law,  or  claimed,  under  any  supposed  necessity,  to  exer 
cise  unconstitutional  rights,  or  even  attempted  to  punish,  with 
out  the  ordinary  forms  of  law,  a  single  citizen  not  attached  to 
the  military  service  ! 

Against  the  dogma  of  Mr.  Lincoln  were  here  two  high  pre 
cedents — -the  highest  in  American  history.  Against  this  same 
dogma  was  an  unbroken  current  of  judicial  decisions,  the  com 
pact  authority  of  all  lessons  of  ancestral  wisdom.  "  The  spirit 
of  liberty,"  said  Mr.  Webster,  "  will  not  permit  power  to  over 
step  its  prescribed  limits,  though  good  intent,  patriotic  intent, 
come  along  with  it.  This  is  the  nature  of  constitutional  liberty. 
This  is  our  liberty."  Under  this  enlightenment  it  is  not  strange 
that  reflecting  men  should  have  pierced  the  fallacy  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  and  his  party,  and  apprehended  in  the  disguise  a  new 
and  dangerous  movement.  It  was,  in  truth,  a  movement  of  a 
second  war,  conducted  under  the  cloak  of  the  first,  and  aimed 
at  the  most  vital  parts  of  the  Constitution. 

The  apprehension  of  this  revolutionary  design  was  strongly 
felt  from  1861  to  1865.  But  the  particular  thought  we  wish 
to  bring  to  the  reader  is,  that  since  the  war  there  has  been  in 
the  conduct  of  the  Republican  party  such  additional  evidence  of 


RECONSTRUCTION.  107 

the  truth  of  the  apprehension  as  to  confirm  it,  and  to  constitute 
it  a  positive  conviction.  That  conduct,  indeed,  reveals  how 
intelligent  was  the  original  opposition  to  this  party  ;  how  just 
and  significant  was  the  war,  at  least  so  far  as  it  was  directed 
against  its  pretensions.  It  is  the  spectacle  of  a  party  furnish 
ing,  in  the  sequel,  the  conclusive  evidence  of  its  original  con 
cealed  wickedness.  If  any  doubt  had  lingered  as  to  the  extent 
of  that  party's  designs,  if  some  minds  had  been  captivated  by 
its  plea  of  necessity,  the  suspense  or  delusion  no  longer  exists. 
Now  when  there  occur  such  new  distinct  evidences  of  unconsti 
tutional  and  revolutionary  purposes  manifested  by  Congress, 
taking  place  since  the  war  has  ceased,  since  its  plea  of  neces 
sity  no  longer  operates,  since  there  are  no  longer  tolerable  ex 
cuses  or  decent  disguises,  since  a  permanent  policy  has  taken 
the  place  of  a  professed  expediency,  and  plain  deliberation  has 
ensued  upon  passion,  surely  no  judicious  mind  can  longer  be  in 
ignorance  of  the  true  character  and  meaning  of  the  past  war, 
or  fail  to  perceive  that  it  contained  a  stake  larger  than  that  of 
the  Union. 

We  are  left  to  the  supposition  that  there  was  really  a  histor 
ical  and  logical  necessity  to  operate  on  the  Republican  party, 
and  to  continue  after  the  war  its  display  of  hostility  to  the 
Constitution  ;  and  it  is  in  the  discovery  of  this  necessity,  we  are 
persuaded,  that  we  have  a  consistent  explanation  of  the  present 
situation  at  Washington  and  of  the  real  issues  of  the  past  war. 
This  party,  on  its  original  mission  against  Slavery,  had  started 
on  the  theory  of  Consolidation;  and  having  abolished  Slavery, 
we  find  it  now  obeying  the  force  of  a  long  political  education, 
and  moved  by  the  supreme  concern  of  prolonging  its  existence 
as  a  party,  in  maintaining  a  condition  of  general  hostility  to 
the  Constitution.  When  a  party  has  conceived  a  sentiment 


103  RECONSTRUCTION. 

of  revolution,  it  will  easily  find  or  make  occasions  through  which 
to  develope  it,  and  to  renew  its  leases  of  power.  The  difficulty 
of  particular  questions  is  soon  supplied ;  and  the  common  mis 
take  of  the  popular  mind  is  in  limiting  to  these  questions  the 
designs  of  party.  It  is  thus  a  number  of  superficial  and  amiable 
politicians  of  the  South  have  mistaken  the  situation  at  Wash 
ington;  have  advised  a  policy  of  concessions,  when  every 
concession  has  been  the  signal  of  a  new  demand;  and  have  imag 
ined  that  they  have  only  to  appease  a  temporary  rage  of  party, 
when  the  necessity  is  really  to  answer  the  demands  of  a  per 
sistent  and  fast-progressing  revolution. 

This  revolution  is  older  and  broader  than  the  war,  that  was 
its  recent  incident.  The  rebellion  of  1861  had  its  immediate 
question  in  the  preservation  of  the  Union ;  but  beyond  there 
might  well  reside  a  paramount  issue  of  constitutional  liberty. 
There  is  no  violence  in  such  a  supposition.  The  lesson  of  his 
tory  is  that,  for  whatever  immediate  objects  rebellions  have 
been  kindled,  the  ultimate  fruit,  in  case  of  success,  is  a  larger 
share  of  public  liberty.  It  has  been  observed  that  it  is  the 
peculiar  lot  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  to  win  their  freedom 
by  rebellion,  and  to  preserve  it  by  rebellion.  No  matter 
what  may  first  excite  the  popular  revolt,  it  is  remarked  that  it 
obtains  significance  as  it  progresses,  and  that  the  movement 
naturally  ascends  to  a  war  for  liberty.  The  war  of  1776 
demanded  ostensibly  nothing  more  than  separation  from  Great 
Britain ;  that  was  its  particular  occasion  and  object ;  and  if 
confined  to  that  alone,  as  Alexander  Hamilton  and  a  large 
party  in  the  North  insisted,  its  success  would  have  been  a  very 
inconsiderable  affair,  nothing  more  than  the  commonplace  in 
history  of  a  change  of  rulers,  the  event  of  a  dynasty.  But 
Mr.  Jefferson,  in  the  Declaration  o,f  Independence,  dated  even 


RECONSTRUCTION.  109 

with  it  a  political  revolution ;  and  it  instantly  possessed  a  new 
significance,  became  a  large  and  important  contest  for  liberty. 
We  have  referred  to  the  continuation  or  renewal  of  that 
contest,  in  1861.  It  is  a  fruitful  thought :  the  profound  identi 
ty  of  the  Two  Rebellions,  1776  and  1861.  Such  identities 
are  the  discoveries  and  studies  of  the  philosophic  historian. 
Indeed,  the  suggestions  we  have  just  made,  have  been  quick 
ened  by  a  recent  English  author  (  Mr.  Morley )  who,  in  a  polit 
ical  study  of  Edmund  Burke  and  his  times,  remarks  that  the 
American  Rebellion  of  1776,  so  far  from  involving  only  the 
tenure  of  the  colonies,  was  logically  and  historically  a  part  of 
the  great  constitutional  struggle  commenced  in  1760,  and 
effectually  decided  it.  What  he  says  of  this  is  so  parallel  to 
what  we  are  considering,  that  we  may  introduce  it  here  for  the 
benefit  of  the  reader — 

"  It  is  almost  demonstrably  certain  that  the  vindication  of  the 
supremacy  of  popular  interests  over  all  other  considerations  would 
have  been  bootless  toil,  and  that  the  great  constitutional  struggle, 
from  1760  to  1783,  would  have  ended  otherwise  than  it  did,  but  for 
the  failure  of  the  war  against  the  insurgent  colonies  and  the  final 
establishment  of  American  independence.  It  was  this  portentous 
transaction  which  finally  routed  the  arbitrary  and  despotic  preten 
sions  of  the  House  of  Commons  over  the  people,  which  put  an  end 
to  the  hopes  entertained  by  the  sovereign  of  making  his  personal 
will  supreme  in  the  chambers,  and  which  established  the  principle 
of  Cabinet  as  distinguished  from  Departmental  responsibility.  Fox 
might  well  talk  of  the  early  royalist  victory  in  the  war  as  the 
terrible  news  from  Rhode  Island.  The  struggle  which  began  success 
fully  at  Brentford,  in  Middlesex,  was  continued  at  Boston,  in  Massa 
chusetts.  The  scene  had  changed,  but  the  conflicting  principles  were 
the  same.  The  defeat  and  subjugation  of  the  colonists  would  have 
been  followed  by  the  final  annihilation  of  the  opposition  in  the  mother 
country.  The  War  of  Independence  was  virtually  a  second  English 
civil  war.  The  ruin  of  the  American  cause  would  have  been  also  tho 


110  RECONSTRUCTION* 

ruin  of  the  constitutional  cause  in  England ;  and  a  patriotic  English 
man  may  revere  the  memory  of  Patrick  Henry  and  George  Washington 
not  less  justly  than  the  patriotic  American." 

So  the  time  may  come,  when  the  patriotic  American  may 
render  his  thanks  to  Davis  and  Lee  for  efforts  which,  once 
disesteemed  as  the  act  of  rebellion,  may  hereafter  be  enlight 
ened  as  parts  of  a  great  constitutional  struggle.  It  is  not  a 
strained  thought  in  the  light  of  what  the  Republican  party  is 
now  doing,  in  the  imprudence  of  victory,  to  confess  its  real 
idea  and  purpose  in  the  war,  and  to  execute  its  consequences. 
There  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  a  message  of  President  John 
son  to  Congress,  which  comes  in  just  here,  fitting  to  the  extract 
from  Mr.  Morley,  and  completing  the  thought  which  we  have 
proposed  for  the  meditation  of  the  intelligent : — 

"  Those  who  advocated  the  right  of  Secession  alleged  in  their  own 
justification  that  we  had  no  regard  for  law,  and  that  their  rights  of 
property,  life,  and  liberty  would  not  be  safe  under  the  Constitution  as 
administered  by  us.  If  we  now  verify  their  assertion,  we  prove  that 
they  were  in  truth  and  in  fact  fighting  for  their  liberty,  and,  instead 
of  branding  their  leaders  with  the  dishonouring  names  of  traitors 
against  a  righteous  and  legal  Government,  we  elevate  them  in  history 
to  the  rank  of  self-sacrificing  patriots,  consecrate  them  to  the  admira 
tion  of  the  world,  and  place  them  by  the  side  of -Washington,  Hampton 
and  Sydney!" 

It  is  when  this  new  illumination  of  the  war  shall  take  place 
that  we  shall  approach  the  full  realization  of  "  The  Lost  Cause 
Regained ;"  when  its  leaders  shall  be  raised  to  admiration,  its 
memories  restored  to  honour,  and  its  great  names  inscribed  in 
a  new  Pantheon  of  patriotic  adoration.  Every  unconstitutional 
act  of  Congress  is  logically  and  irreparably  directed  to  such  a 
consummation.  It  is  a  new  thought ;  a  new  animation  for  the 


RECONSTRUCTION.  Ill 

South;  a  new  prophecy  of  "  The  Lost  Cause  Regained-;"  a  new 
meditation  in  the  confused  strife  and  turmoil  of  the  day.  Sure 
ly  the  people  of  the  South  will  be  better  able  to  support  the 
oppression  and  outrage  of  their  present  rulers,  when  they  reflect 
that  these  are  effectively,  though  unconsciously,  working  out 
their  vindication,  and  that  the  blind  guide  of  party  is  steadily 
conducting  them  to  that  bar  of  history  where  the  past  "  rebels" 
are  to  be  proclaimed  the  true  patriots. 


112  RECONSTRUCTION. 


III. 

THE   NEGRO   QUESTION. 

RETROSPECT  OF  SLAVERY 

The  political  question  of  the  Negro  resolved  to  one  of  natural  history — Value  of  the  fact 
of  the  specific  inferiourity  of  the  Negro — Its  importance  in  a  retrospect  ol  the  section 
al  controversy  and  war — The  tribute  of  history  to  Negro  Slavery  in  the  South — 
The  equality  doctrine  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  so  far  from  condemning 
Slavery,  obtained  from  the  contact  and  influence  of  it — The  true  and  only  defence 
ot  Slavery — Mistakes  of  Southern  politicians — Their  appeal  to  the  Constitution  in  be 
half  of  Slavery,  a  mean  and  infamous  one — The  important  premise  of  the  entire  Slavery 
Question,  the  inferiourity  of  the  Negro. 

Congress  appeared,  some  months  ago,  disposed  to  give  some 
ittention  to  ethnological  and  scientific  inquiries  on  the  subject 
of  the  Negro.  It  could  not  have  been  better  employed,  for 
after  all,  the  whole  political  controversy  about  the  son  of 
Ham  is  contained  in  the  question,  whether  he  is  a  mere  variety 
of  the  human  race,  measurably  capable  of  equality  with  its 
highest  developments,  or  a  distinct,  inferiour  species  of  man, 
doomed  by  the  inexorable  laws  of  nature  to  certain  limits  and 
conditions  of  existence.  In  short,  the  political  question  of  the 
Negro,  resolved  to  its  last  elements,  is  simply  and  purely  a 
question  of  natural  history,  for  it  is  at  last  by  the  the  standards 


THE    NEGRO    QUESTION.  113 

of  nature  that  we  are  to  determine,  whether  the  Radical  task 
of  Negro  equality  is  practicable,  or  a  violent  and  impossible  ex 
periment,  sure  as  all  experiments  against  nature  are,  to  recoil 
upon  and  punish  itself. 

We  believe,  indeed,  that  the  specific,  permanent  inferiourity 
of  the  Negro,  so  far  from  being  a  mere  disputation  of  the  learn 
ed,  a  scholastic  entertainment,  is,  as  discovered  and  eviscera 
ted  by  the  past  war,  the  most  important  question  of  modern 
times,  and  one  vital  to  the  whole  body  of  American  civilization. 
This  question  once  determined, we  enlighten  the  whole  past 
controversy  of  Slavery ;  we  occupy  the  one  ultimate  logical 
foundation  of  the  entire  perplexed  argument  on  this  subject, 
with  all  its  forms,  syllogisms  and  expressions  ;  and  we  secure 
for  the  future  affairs  of  the  country  an  intelligent  rule  of 
action.  If,  as  it  now  appears,  we  have  the  settled  prospect 
that  the  white  man  and  the  Negro,  under  certain  circumstances, 
which  will  be  elsewhere  discussed,  shall  exist  in  juxtaposition, 
then  a  specific  knowledge  of  this  black  race,  and  its  relations  to 
our  own,  may  truly  be  declared  a  vital  and  transcendent  con 
sideration,  connected  with  our  national  destiny,  and  involving 
questions  not  second  in  importance  to  any  that  have  ever  been 
presented  to  a  civilized  and  Christian  people. 

The  value  of  the  fact  of  the  Negro's  inferiourity  is  very  great. 
We  repeat  that  it  furnishes  the  key  to  much  that  is  past  in  the 
sectional  controversy  of  North  and  South.  It  is  with  respect 
to  this  single  fact  that  we  design  a  brief  retrospect  of  Slavery, 
rather  than  to  renew  the  "vexed  question,"  the  comparative 
enumeration  of  virtues  and  vices.  The  intelligent  Southerner 
of  this  day  is  satisfied  to  leave  this  controversy  to  the  future 
historian ;  assured  that  whatever  of  vices  and  defects  he  may 
ascribe  to  Slavery,  he  cannot  omit  its  contributions  in  the  past ; 


114  THE   NEGRO   QUESTION. 

that  he  cannot  fail  to  write  on  the  broad,  judicial  pages  of  the 
nation's  record  in  civilization  and  progress,  that  Slavery 
developed  the  vast  regions  south  of  the  Ohio,  giving  to  the 
world  cheap  cotton,  sugar  and  rice;  that  it  produced  nearly  all 
the  materials  of  foreign  export ;  that  furnishing  two  hundred 
millions  of  annual  exports  from  the  South,  it  supplied  the  nu 
triment  of  national  commerce,  besides  a  bountiful  market  for 
the  reward  of  the  commercial  and  manufacturing  industry  of 
the  North ;  that,  whatever  theorists  may  allege,  it  stimulated 
the  republican  ideas  of  the  white  population,  to  the  extent  of 
producing  the  most  liberal  statesmen  in  America,  and  contri 
buting  the  larger  portion  of  the  great  Democratic  party;  and 
that  it  created  that  most  curious  party  alliance  in  our  political 
history — the  capital  of  the  South  and  the  labour  of  the  North 
— which  has  governed  the  country  with  peculiar  honour  and 
most  memorable  renown. 

These  are  historical  facts  of  great  breadth.  "We  promised 
to  confine  ourselves  to  the  single  question  of  the  Negro's  in- 
feriourity.  J It  really  attaches  to  what  we  have  just  written; 
and  the  value  of  the  fact  of  that  inferiourity  is  most  apparent, 
most  striking  in  the  last  enumeration  of  the  effects  of  Slavery. 
The  thoughtful  historian  of  America  will  find  that  the  obvious 
visible  inferiourity  of  the  Negro  was  constantly,  although  un 
consciously,  educating  the  people  of  the  South  to  a  disregard 
of  the  mere  artificial  distinctions  of  society,  by  the  side  of  this 
great  natural  difference  of  races — was,  in  fact,  developing,  by  a 
process  of  comparison,  the  idea  of  equality  as  among  men  of 
the  same  race  ;  and  he  may  startle  some  convictions  when  he 
announces  the  important  political  discovery  that  the  equality 
slause  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  so  far  from  condemn 
ing  Negro  Slavery,  was  obtained  from  it,  originated  in  its  con- 


THE   NEGRO   QUESTION.  115 

tact  and  experience !  It  is  a  startling  declaration  in  our  politi 
cal  history,  a  vivacious  interjection;  yet  it  is  profoundly  true.. 
Mr.  Jefferson's  doctrine  of  equality  as  of  men  of  the  same  race 
was  merely  the  transfer  to  the  domain  of  politics  of  that  law  of 
natural  history  which  teaches  us  that  all  the  members  of  a  species 
are  equal.  The  varieties  within  the  boundaries  of  a  single  spe 
cies  are  of  no  account  in  comparison  with  the  differences  as  be 
tween  distinct  species.  The  habitual  observation  of  the  South 
was  as  between  two  species  or  races  of  men ;  and  there  was  an 
obvious  mental  necessity  that  as  people  regarded  this  great  natu 
ral  distinction,  they  should  attach  less  importance  to  those 
inferiour  distinctions  made  by  society  in  mere  classes  and 
conditions  of  life,  and  thus  progress  to  clearer  perceptions  of 
the  natural  equality  of  their  own  species  and  race.  It  is  thus  that 
the  Negro  Slavery  of  the  South  became  the  instructor  of  white 
republicanism;  that  the  inferiourity  of  the  Negro  is  to  be  re 
cognized  as  a  fruitful  and  conservative  principle  in  our  system 
of  politics ;  and  that  we  claim  a  value  for  this  fact,  which  we 
suggested  at  the  beginning  of  this  article  would  exceed  the  or 
dinary  estimates. 

We  add  another  view  of  the  importance  of  this  fact.  The 
permanent,  natural  inferiourity  of  the  Negro  was  the  true  and 
only  defence  of  Slavery.  The  intelligence  of  the  South  has  at 
last  awaked  to  this  idea  in  the  stimulating  light  of  the  recent 
war  and  its  consequences ;  but  it  is  strange  how  in  the  past  the 
Southern  mind  wandered  in  its  defences  of  Slavery,  and  chose 
the  narrowest  and  most  imperfect  grounds  for  a  controversy 
which  it  might  have  maintained  on  an  impregnable  principle 
of  natural  law.*  The  question  of  races  figured  slightly  in  the 

*  Of  the  imperfect  and  confused  notions  of  Negro  Slavery  on  the  part  of  the  wisest  poli 
ticians  of  the  South,  a  striking  example  is  afforded  by  Thomas  Jefferson.  He  saw  what 
all  candid  and  humane  men  saw,  that  Slavery  was  liable  to  abuses,  and  his  compassion 


116  THE   NEGRO    QUESTION. 

accustomed  debate  and  was  thought  to  be  scarcely  more  than 
a  nice  and  curious  philosophy.  The  argument  a  posteriori  was 
preferred  to  that  a  priori;  and  the  advocates  of  Slavery  were 
generally  content  to  point  to  its  effects,  to  its  maintenance 
in  profound  peace  without  military  machinery,  to  its  fruits  of 
industry,  to  its  evidences  of  benevolence.  Such  reasoning  was 
more  suggestive  than  convincing;  but  more  imperfect  yet  was 
the  common  argument  that  the  defence  of  Slavery  was  assured 
by  the  guaranties  of  Constitutional  law,  and  that,  without  refer 
ence  to  moral  questions,  it  had  a  secure  lodging  in  the  Const!" 

was  moved  by  frequent  incidents  of  cruelty  to  the  Negro,  committed  with  impunity, 
through  looseness  of  the  law,  or  the  licenses  of  public  sentiment  in  particular  neighbour 
hoods.  A  remedy  was  needed. 

Before  the  war  the  author  had  meditated  a  great  missionary  effort  for  the  unification 
of  all  laws  touching  the  Negro ;  for  a  code  which  should  exhibit  all  possible  humanity, 
and  allow  all  possible  liberty  to  the  Negro,  consistent  with  the  single  fact  of  compulsory 
service ;  which  should  have  the  effect  of  enlightening  the  world  as  to  the  true  nature  of 
the  "peculiar  institution"  of  the  South,  and  especially  vindicating  it  from  the  censure 
attaching  to  the  misnomer,  "slavery" — a  libel  of  party  nomenclature.  It  was  a  large, 
inspiring  work,  worthy  of  the  greatest  minds.  The  war  interrupted  it.  Yet  the  author 
cannot  help  believing  to  this  day  that  the  remedy  proposed — ameliorating  the  condition 
of  the  Negro  and  advertising,  in  the  form  of  public  laws,  his  true  condition  to  the" world 
— would  have  satisfied  the  sympathies  of  the  intelligent,  and  answered  all  reasonable 
demands  oi  the  humane. 

The  mistake  of  Mr.  Jefferson  was  in  jumping  to  Emancipation,  and  seeing  no  remedy 
for  existing  evils  short  of  it.  The  design,  the  sentiment  was  good ;  but  the  remedy  pro 
posed  was  mistaken  and  excessive,  and  betrayed  an  ignorance  of  the  fundamental  idea 
of  Slavery,  and  a  misconception  of  the  true  wants  of  the  Negro  scarcely  to  be  expected 
in  a  mind  like  that  of  Jefferson.  Yet,  however  Mr.  Jefferson  was  carried  away  by  a 
sentimental  fervour,  and  desired  for  the  Negro  the  gift  of  Emancipation,  he  was  yet 
thoroughly  convinced  that  the  released  black  could  never  live  on  terms  of  equality  with 
the  white  man  in  the  same  political  community.  The  Anti- Slavery  party  has  quoted 
from  this  great  authority  with  ingenious  partiality  and  unfairness,  and  has  invariably 
omitted  the  words  which  recoil  on  their  policy.  If  Jefferson  was  an  Emancipationist,  lie 
was  yet  far  from  being  an  Abolitionist  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term.  "We  can,  indeed, 
add  nothing  to  the  perspicuity  or  emphasis  of  the  following  words  of  the  Sage  of  Monti- 
cello :  "  Nothing  is  more  clearly  written  in  the  book  of  destiny  than  the  emancipation  <  4 
the  blacks ;  and  it  is  equally  certain  that  the  two  races  will  never  live  in  state  of  equal 
freedom  under  the  same  government,  so  insurmountable  are  the  barriers  which  nature, 
habits  and  opinions  have  established  between  them.  " 

We  may  add  the  remarkable  fact  that  of  all  leading  men  in  the  South  who  ever  at 
any  time  desired  Emancipation,  not  one  failed  to  couple  it  with  the  condition  that  the 
Negro  should  be  colonized,  or  withdrawn  from  competition  with  the  white  man ;  and  in 
this  respect  they  have  been  invariably  misquoted  by  the  Anti-Slavery  party  ol  the  North. 
JSuppressio  veri,  suggestio  falsi. 


TUB    NEGRO    QUESTION.  117 

tution  of  the  United  States.  Of  what  avail  was  this  refuge 
when  the  devotees  of  Anti-Slavery,  in  the  language  of  one  of 
their  eloquent  leaders  were  prepared  to  "  rend  the  Union  to  de 
stroy  Slavery,  though  hedged  round  by  the  triple  bars  of  the 
national  compact,  and  though  thirty-three  crowned  sovereigns 
with  arms  in  their  hands  stood  around  it !  "  How  dull  must  have 
been  the  statesmanship  of  the  South  that  did  not  perceive  the 
lesson  running-  through  all  history,  that  laws,  whether  organic 
or  statute,  avail  nothing  against  the  steady  encroachment  of  a 
moral  sentiment,  and  that  where  a  people  has  once  fully  satis* 
fied  itself  that  an  evil  is  to  be  corrected,  it  will  move  upon  it 
by  whatever  means  are  most  direct  and  decisive ! 

The  defence  of  Slavery  by  virtue  of  the  Constitution  was  es 
sentially  narrow  and  infamously  mean.  It  amounted  to  scarce 
ly  more  than  the  plea  so  often  made  in  criminal  courts  for  tho 
ingenious  villain  :  that  a  crime  has  been  committed,  but  there 
is  no  law  to  reach  it,  and  the  offence  is  to  escape  on  a  techni 
cality.  The  true  question  in  Negro  Slavery  was  that  of  right 
or  wrong.  It  was  all  wrong,  if  the  Negro  was  really  the  equi 
valent  of  the  white  man  enveloped  in  a  black  skin.  Admit  this 
and  Slavery  becomes  a  great  crime ;  the  breach  of  the  Consti 
tution  to  attack  it,  a  sacrifice  of  virtue  and  patriotism  ;  the  war 
to  exterminate  it,  a  rightful  one;  the  consequent  policy  of 
Negro  equality,  just ;  the  gift  of  the  suffrage,  unavoidable ; 
and  even  rewards  of  the  Negro  above  the  white  man  and  a 
supcriour  solicitude  for  him,  commendable  in  view  of  his  depri 
vations  and  sufferings  in  the  past.  We  cannot  stop  in  the 
argument ;  it  runs  irresistibly  to  every  extremity  of  the  govern 
ing  Radical  policy  at  Washington,  and  surrenders  every  question 
in  the  present  political  controversy.  We  must  do — what  the 
South  has  never  fairly  done — meet  the  whole  controversy  at 


118  THE   NEGRO   QUESTIONc 

the  minor  premise,  contending  for  the  natural  inferiourity  of 
the  Negro.  It  is  from  this  inferiourity  that  we  deduce  all  the 
benefits  of  Slavery  in  the  past.  It  is  from  this  inferiourity 
that  we  draw  all  our  arguments  with  respect  to  future  experi 
ments  on  the  Negro.  The  fact  is  important  as  a  historical  vin 
dication  of  the  past.  It  is  also  important  as  a  supreme  instruc 
tion  for  the  future. 

It  will  be  well  now  to  summon  the  evidences  of  a  fact  so 
important  and  to  secure  at  once  what  we  esteem  the  most  preg 
nant  and  fruitful  premise  in  all  the  political  controversies  of 
our  day. 


INFERIOURITY    OF    THE    NEGRO. 

The  Scientific  Argument — 'Divisions  of  the  organic  world — Qualities  of  a  "  Species" — 
The  law  of  hybridity — The  Negro,  the  base  of  the  generic  column  of  Man — No  genus 
without  species — Limits  of  interunion  between  Negroes  and  Whites — The  Octoroon 
absolutely  sterile — Uniformity  of  the  type  of  the  Negro— The  excavations  of  Cham' 
pollion—  The  Religious  Argument— Hypothesis  of  a  Divine  miracle  with  reference  to 
the  Negro—  TJie  Historic  Argument— The  Negro  in  Africa— Former  civilization  of  the 
Nile — A  glance  at  Liberia — The  idea  oi  the  inferiourity  of  the  Negro,  one  of  bene 
volence. 

AVe  propose  to  make  a  brief  summary  of  the  evidences  of 
the  inferiourity  of  the  Negro,  as  a  distinct  race  of  men.  The 
subject  has  occupied  many  large  volumes  ;  but  we  shall  dis 
patch  it  here  in  a  limited  space,  putting  it  in  a  form  for  easy 
popular  apprehension,  and  in  a  shape  as  orderly  and  compact 
as  possible. 


THE    NEGEO    QUESTION.  119 

1.  The  Scie?itific  Argument.  We  are  taught  by  science  that 
the  organic  world  consists  of  different  forms  and  orders,  subject 
to  many  subdivisions ;  that  those  groups  of  beings  are  in  a  cer 
tain  sense  independent  systems,  worlds  in  themselves — such 
being  the  grand  economy  of  nature  that  one  or  more  of  them  might 
be  utterly  extinguished  (as  in  fact  we  are  informed  by  geologists 
has  been  the  case  with  many  forms  of  animals,  and  perhaps 
of  man  too)  without  interrupting  the  course  and  harmony  of 
the  universe.  The  aggregate  world  would  yet  live  and  move 
without  them.  These  divisions  of  being  are  founded  on  differ 
ences  in  form  and  character,  at  intervals  which  regularly  di 
minish  until  they  come  down  to  "  varieties"  of  the  same  creature. 
The  organic  world  is  thus  divided  into  classes,  orders,  genera, 
species  and  varieties.  The  last  are  distinguished  only  by  ac 
cidental  circumstances  and  are  more  or  less  permanent,  as 
these  circumstances  operate.  The  quality  of  the  species  is  that  its 
members,  while  equal  to  each  other,  differ  from  those  of  other 
species,  ascending  or  descending,  to  the  extent  that  one  degree 
never  passes  into  another;  and  its  test  is  that  the  principle  of 
interunion  is  limited,  that  while  different  species  may  be  capable 
of  interunion,  it  is  only  to  a  limited  extent,  the  product  ulti 
mately  perishing  by  the  inexorable  law  of  hylridity^  by  which 
nature  punishes  the  transgression  of  her  laws.  The  relations  of 
these  species  to  each  other  is  that  of  gradual  improvement  or 
ascent ;  that  is,  taking  the  number  of  species  of  which  a  genus 
is  composed,  we  find  the  one  next  above  the  lowest  with  all  the 
qualities  of  the  latter,  but  with  fuller  developement,  more 
elaborate  organization,  and  with  corresponding  faculties  of  a 
higher  order.  In  other  words,  there  is  a  head  and  a  base  to 
the  generic  column.  It  begins  with  the  lowest  or  simplest  for 
mation,  and  rises  in  the  scale  of  being  until  it  is  completed ; 


120  THE    NEGEO    QUESTION. 

and  while  these  formations  generically  considered  resemble 
each  other,  yet  specifically  considered,  they  are  absolutely  dis 
tinct,  unlike  each  other  in  everything,  to  the  minutest  particle 
of  elementary  matter. 

In  Man  we  find  the  Negro  as  the  base  of  the  generic  column  ; 
and  ascending,  in  order,  the  different  races  above  him — the  Es 
quimaux,  the  Aboriginal  American,  the  Malay  or  Oceanic,  the 
Mongolian — we  at  last  reach  in  the  Caucasian  or  the  historic  race 
the  perfection  of  the  highest  form  of  the  human  creation.     The 
Great  Creator  has  impressed  on  all  his  works  evidences  of  limit 
less  conception  and  power.    Everywhere  in  nature  we  discover  the 
principle  of  variety  attesting  the  multitude,  the  infinity  of  crea 
tive  design.     It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  in  Man  alone,  the 
perfection  of  the  Creator's  works  and  His  crowning  glory,  this 
principle  should  be    omitted ;  that  in  him  of  all  other  beings 
there  should  be  manifested  poverty  of  creative  design ;  that  in 
him,  of  the  whole  animal  creation,  there  should  be  presented 
the  contradiction  and  anomaly  of  a  genus  without  species !     In 
the  entire  world  of  animal  existence  there  is  no  such  fact  as  a 
single    species.     Thus,  those  who  insist  that  the  human   crea 
tion  is  composed  of  a  single  species  contradict  or  ignore  the 
most  constant,  universal  and  uniform  fact  in  organic  life.     They 
violate  the  whole  order  and  analogy  of  Nature  in  insisting  that 
Man  is  incapable  of  specific  divisions  of  being  ;  they  deny  the 
great  law  of  adaptation,  signifying  Divine  Providence,  in  suppos 
ing  that  Man,  who  inhabits  the  whole  range  of  organic  and  ani 
mal  life,  partakes  of  none  of  its  relations  and  laws,  and  furnishes 
in  himself  the  single  instance  of  but  one  type  and  capacity  amid 
so  many  changes.     Rightly  estimating  the  power  of  different 
evidences,  there  is  none  higher  or  nobler,  none  in  closer  converse 
with  the  Divine  intelligence  than  that  drawn  from  Analogy.    It 


THE    NEGRO    QUESTION. 


121 


is  this,  beyond  all  other  arguments,  wliich  secures  the  proof  of 
different  species  of  Man.  He  can  be  no  exception  to  the  de 
signs  of  the  Creator;  and  the  law  that  distributes  all  created 
being,  and  runs  the  lines  of  specific  differences  through  the 
whole  animal  world  must  apply  to  him. 

But  it  has  been  said  that  the  test  of  different  species,  as  we 
have  designated  it  above,  does  not  apply  to  the  Negro — that  t/te 
principle  of  interunion  between  him  and  the  white  man  is  not 
limited,  and  that  therefore  they  are  but  "varieties  "  which  may 
approach  and  assimilate  by  the  operation  of  circumstances.  It 
was  seen  that  white  men  cohabited  with  Negro  women  and  that 
the  offspring  in  turn  reproduced  itself;  wherefore  it  was  argued 
that  they  were  but  varieties  with  all  powers  of  virility  as  be- 
•twcen  themselves,  for  if  they  had  been  different  species,  the 
mulatto  would  have  been  as  incapable  of  reproduction,  as  the 
mule,  the  offspring  of  the  horse  and  ass,  is.  But  the  argument 
is  short  and  deficient ;  for  the  fact  is  that  although  the  mulatto 
reproduces,  this  power  is  diminished  in  each  generation  where 
he  intermarries  with  other  hybrids,  until  at  last  it  is  utterly  lost 
and  the  progeny  becomes  absolutely  sterile.  It  has  been  as 
serted,  as  the  result  of  some  recent  scientific  investigations,  that 
this  conclusion  of  sterility  occurs  in  the  fourth  generation  ;  but 
wherever  does  occur  the  natural  barrier  of  this  exceptional  form 
of  being,  it  is  sufficient  for  the  purposes  of  our  argument  to 
know  that  it  does  occur  somewhere ;  that  at  some  period 
absolute  sterility  intervenes,  that  the  principle  of  inter- 
union  is  limited,  no  matter  to  what  degree  of  limitation.  It 
may  be  in  the  light  of  these  facts  that  the  difference  between 
the  white  man  and  the  Negro  is  not  as  great  as  bet  ween  "some 
other  species  of  animals ;  but  that  this  difference  is  specific  is 
sufficiently  proved  from  the  fact  that  the  law  of  hybridity  does 

6 


122  THE    NEGRO    QUESTION. 

control  the  offspring,  although  it  may  be  in  a  comparatively 
distant  generation,  and  that  there  is  an  ultimate  and  absolute 
barrier  beyond  which  "  mulattoism  "  cannot  exist.  The  ques 
tion  is  as  to  the  degree,  not  as  to  the  nature  of  the  difference. 
We  know  that  the  offspring  of  the  white  man  and  the  Negro  is 
essentially  hybrid;  that  "mulattoism  "  is  absolutely  confined 
to  a  limited  number  of  generations,  its  virile  power  decreasing 
at  each  effort  of  reproduction ;  and  the  reason  that  we  are  not 
familiar  with  the  conclusion  of  this  exceptional  offspring  in  ab 
solute  sterility  is,  that  its  destruction  is  worked  out  through 
constitutional  fragility  and  limited  longevity  as  much,  perhaps, 
as  through  imperfect  capacity  of  reproduction. 

But  in  addition  to  these  arguments  of  science  for  the  distinct 
and  inferiour  race  of  the  Negro — in  addition  to  what  Analog/ 
proclaims  of  the  law  of  order,  and  to  what  investigation  asserts 
of  the  experiment  of  interunion — we  have  those  visible  and 
tangible  evidences  of  the  difference  between  the  white  and 
black  man,  which  furnish  the  argument  best  suited  for  popular 
appreciation,  and  determine  the  question  by  the  irresistible 
force  of  the  senses.  It  was  likely  for  naturalists  who  lived 
some  centuries  ago,  and  who  scarcely  knew  anything  of  the 
human  creation  beyond  the  two  hundred  millions  of  Caucasians 
in  Europe,  to  suppose  that  there  was  but  one  species  of  man, 
and  that  those  who  inhabited  distant  and  unexplored  parts  of 
the  world  were  like  themselves,  except  in  the  operation  and  ef 
fect  of  the  circumstances  which  surrounded  them.  It  is  even 
possible  for  those  in  modern  times,  who  know  nothing  about 
the  Negro  except  that  he  has  a  black  skin,  to  take  hold  of  the 
superficial  imagination  that  he  is  merely  "a  coloured  man," 
and  raising  the  cry  of  "no  distinction  of  colour  "  to  dash  at 
once  into  the  dogmas  of  equality.  But  those  who  have  a  clear 


THE    NEGRO    QUESTION.  123 

and  more  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Negro ;  who  know  the 
uniform  facts  attaching  to  his  existence ;  who  in  their  ordinary 
experience  have  seen  Negro  parents  having  Negro  offspring,  as 
Indians  have  Indian  offspring,  and  whites  have  white  offspring, 
*;  each  after  its  kind  "  regularly  and  invariably  as  in  other 
forms  of  existence ;  and  who  fortifying  these  common  daily 
observations  by  the  lesson  of  history,  that  thus  it  has  been  in 
all  kinds  of  climate  and  all  kinds  of  circumstances,  without 
change  or  symptom  of  change,  regardless  of  the  fact  thai^the 
Negro  may  have  lived  four  thousand  years  ago  or  yesterday, 
may  have  been  "free  or  slave,"  may  have  basked  on  the  sands 
of  Africa,  or  may  have  produced  his  offspring  amid  the  snows 
of  Canada,  can  never  be  persuaded  by  any  amount  of  reason 
ing  that  he  is  not  a  Negro  as  surely  as  the  crow  is  a  crow  and 
not  a  dove,  that  he  is  specifically  different  from  themselves,  and 
that  nothing  short  of  a  Divine  miracle  can  assimilate  him  to 
the  lordly  type  of  the  Caucasian,  the  master-man  of  the 
world ! 

It  is  not  the  mere,  unimportant  difference  of  colour.  It  is 
a  difference,  as  science  teaches  us,  through  the  whole  ana 
tomical  detail,  including  all  the  organs,  tissues  and  systems 
down  to  the  minutest  atom  of  the  bodily  structure.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  go  through  these  details  here ;  for  there  is  enough 
outwardly  and  obviously  apparent  of  the  specific  differences  of 
the  Negro  to  determine  the  judgment  of  any  mind  capable  of 
reasoning  from  cause  to  effect.  We  see  these  differences  as 
well  as  that  of  colour  in  the  tout  e?ise?nble  of  the  anatomical 
formation  of  the  Negro ;  in  the  small  average  of  his  brain ;  in 
his  inclination  to  the  quadruped  posture  ;  in  the  shape  of-  the 
pelvis  ;  in  the  hair,  sui  ge?ieris  and  triangular  in  shape ;  in  the 
features  flat,  shapeless  and  indistinct,  the  sunken  nose,  the 


124  THE    NEGRO    QUESTION. 

enormous  lips,  the  receding  forehead,  the  sodden  animal 
aspect,  with  its  limited  and  coarse  ranges  of  expression. 
Looking  at  these  marks  we  have  only  to  apply  the  natural  law, 
that  the  outward  differences  must  have  their  counterparts  in 
the  inward  structure,  to  apprehend  the  conclusion  that  the 
Negro  differs  from  the  white  man  in  the  minutest  atom  of 
elementary  matter,  and  to  believe,  what  the  microscope  of  the 
man  of  science  reveals,  that  even  a  single  globule  of  his  blood 
differs  from  that  of  the  white  man  as  widely  as  the  colour, 
hair,  or  other  outward  quality  that  confronts  our  daily  obser 
vation. 

And  so  it  has  been  for  four  thousand  years.  It  is  within 
comparatively  recent  times  that  a  new  aid  has  been  summoned 
to-  History,  a  new  avenue  of  information  opened  into  the 
mysteries  of  the  past  by  the  labours  of  the  excavator  in  the 
scenes  of  ancient  story.  It  is  in  the  light  of  these  astonishing 
revelations — such  as  those  of  the  celebrated  Champollion — 
that  we  discover  the  specific  character  of  the  Negro  forty 
centuries  ago  with  absolute  and  unmistakable  certainty  as  the 
same  displayed  to  the  eyes  of  the  present  generation — the 
same  in  structure  and  features,  presenting  the  same  marked 
differences  from  the  Caucasian  race  which  we  observe  to-day 
and  which  have  accompanied  every  generation  under  every 
condition  of  circumstances,  of  climate,  social  condition, 
education,  time  and  accident.*  It  is  but  one  step  more  in  the 
argument — and  that  obvious  and  natural — to  assert  that  what 

*  These  facts,  even  putting  aside  the  theory  ol  the  Negro  as  a  distinct  "species"  of 
man,  yet  show  him  such  a  "permanent  variety  "  as  to  answer  all  the  ends  of  the  argu 
ment;  that  his  inferiourity  is  such  as  to  exclude  the  prospect  of  his  advancement  to 
equality  with  the  white  man,  and  to  assign  him  to  the  condition  of  a  subordinate 
creature.  Indeed,  in  view  of  these  facts,  it  is  not  necessary  to  assert  the  inferiourity  of 
the  Negro  as  a  quality  of  the  species,  if  it  attaches  so  permanently  to  him  even  as  a 
variety  of  the  race  of  man.  This  observation,  although  sunk  to  the  place  of  a  foot-note, 


THE    NEGRO    QUESTION.  125 

has  existed  uniform  and  undeviating  in  the  course  of  four 
thousand  years  must  have  been  so  from  the  beginning,  and 
have  proceeded  from  the  hand  of  the  Great  Creator.  If  the 
Negro  in  this  long  time,  these  past  ages,  has  preserved  his 
integrity,  and  transmitted  to  each  succeeding  generation  the 
exact  and  complete  type  of  himself,  we  must  suppose  that  thus 
he  existed  in  the  anteriour  period  and  that  thus  he  will  con 
tinue  in  future  time — specifically  and  hopelessly  inferiour  to 
the  white  man. 

2.  The  Religious  Argument.  But  after  all  that  science  has 
demonstrated  on  this  subject,  we  have  a  certain  Biblical  argu 
ment,  which  it  has  become  recently  fashionable  to  interpose  as 
against  the  doctrine  of  distinct  races,  and  which  has  frequently 
silenced  discussion  by  a  dogma  as  arrogant  in  tone  as  it  is 
puerile  in  character.  It  is  said  that  the  inspired  narration  in 
the  book  of  G-enesis,  showing  all  men  descended  from  a  single 
pair  in  the  garden  of  Eden,  secures  the  doctrine  of  the  unity 
of  races,  and  that  it  is  forbidden  and  impious  for  science  to 
allege  to  the  contrary.  This  argument  may  be  dispatched  $y 
a  single  consideration.  Even  if  we  are  to  accept  the  story  in 
Genesis  as  literally  and  scientifically  correct,  it  'does  not 

ia  very  important,  as  it  silences  the  advocates  of  Negro  equality  on  either  of  the  two 
suppositions  which  the  case  admits. 

Such  discoveries  as  those  of  Champollion,  at  least,  furnish  the  visible  evidence  of  a 
permanence  in  the  variety  of  the  Negro,  which,  if  it  does  not  render  naturally  and  abso 
lutely  impossible  the  doctrine  of  his  equality  with  the  white  man,  yet  postpones  it  to  a 
period  beyond  all  reasonable  calculation  in  human  legislation,  and  makes  it  a  mero 
phantom  of  the  imagination.  Four  thousand  years  look  down  upon  Congress  !  In  all 
that  time  the  Negro,  whether  a  "species"  or  a  "variety,"  has  been  marked,  as  he  is 
to-day,  an  inferiour  man ;  and  that,  after  forty  centuries,  in  which  the  integrity  of  the 
type  has  been  faithfully  preserved,  it  is  to  be  instantly  and  radically  changed,  and  the 
Negro  make  a  sudden  apparition  as  the  equal  and  rival  of  the  Caucasian,  is  rather  too 
much  for  any  human  credulity.  The  interval  is  too  vast,  the  "variety  "  too  "permanent " 
for  any  effect  of  equality  within  any  appreciable  time ;  it  is  an  indefinite,  if  not  an 
infinite  progression,  ad  astro,,  beyond  the  teach  of  mortal  calculation. 


126  THE    NEGRO    QUESTION. 

exclude  the  possibility  or  even  probability  that  God  may  not 
have  thereafter  worked  a  miracle — as  He  did  at  Babel  in  the 
division  of  tongues — and  have  separated  the  races  of  men  as 
well  by  different  natures  as  by  different  tongues  and  impossible 
distances.  Every  sincere  believer  in  Christianity  is  estopped 
from  denying  the  supposition  of  such  a  miracle.  The  whole 
Christian  religion  is  founded  on  miracles  ;  they  are  a  machinery 
which  the  true  believer  admits  on  even  slight  occasions — why 
not  then  in  this  great  matter  of  the  Divine  economy  ?  If  it 
be  contended  that  God  at  any  time,  might  not  establish  the 
distinction  of  races,  we  limit  His  power  and  insult  His 
majesty ;  and  no  less  crime  of  impiety  than  this  is  committed 
by  those  who  insist,  that  the  Almighty  Creator  could  have 
regulated  this  matter  of  races  at  no  other  time  than  on  "the 
seventh  day  "  of  creation,  and  in  no  other  place  than  in  the 
garden  of  Eden.  But  the  argument  is  not  worth  pursuit;  it 
runs  at  last  into  derogation  of  the  Divine  Power ;  and  we  arc 
satisfied  to  believe  that,  if  as  science  and  all  human  arguments 
lead  us  to  suppose,  the  creature  Man  has  been  divided  into 
difrerent  races,  it  was  so  by  the  will  of  the  Almighty  without 
any  limitations  of  time  'and  place  within  which  to  perform  the 
greatest  or  the  least  of  His  works. 

3.  The  Historic  Argument.  The  little  we  know  of  the  £s  eo-ro 
historically  is  fatal  to  his  claim  of  similar  nature  and  possible 
equality  with  the  white  man.  We  find  him  in  all  known 
records  of  the  world  incapable  of  improvement,  alien  to  pro 
gress,  an  incorrigible  straggler  from  the  march  of  civilization ; 
if  we  may  except  what  improvement  he  has  obtained  from  the 
condition  of  so  called  slavery  in  America,  where  his  special 
endowment  of  the  imitative  faculty  has  been  called  and  con- 


THE    NEGRO    QUESTION.  127 

strained  into  unusual  exercise  by  virtue  of  his  inferiour  posi 
tion.  But  apart  from  this  exceptional  and  limited  civilization 
he  has  obtained  from  the  contact  of  a  white  master,  which 
grows  out  of  the  narrow  faculty  of  imitation,  and  exists^  only 
within  the  boundaries  of  a  certain  association,  the  Negro  re 
mains  in  Africa  a  stationary  barbarian,  or  exists  in  other 
countries,  a  hopeless  retrograde.  For  four  thousand  years  he 
has  remained  within  the  prison-house  of  African  barbarism  ; 
and  although  great  empires  have  been  planted  upon  his  borders 
and  the  foci  of  enlightenment  have  been  erected  around  him 
— although  countless  myriads  of  white  men  have  lived  and 
died  on  the  soil  of  Africa,  and  vast  populations  and  entire 
nations  have  emigrated  to  that  continent  with  the  lights  of 
civilization — the  Negro  has  never  yet  been  permanently  affected 
by  the  contact,  and  the  light  that  has  shone  upon  his  condition 
has  only  made  the  darkness  more  visible.  The  noble  civiliza 
tion  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  which  followed  the  Christian 
era,  and  at  one  time  boasted  forty  thousand  inmates  of  reli 
gious  houses  within  its  boundaries,  has  perished  and  left  not 
a  trace  upon  the  Negro  who  lived  in  view  of  its  splendid  struc 
tures  and  came  within  the  influences  of  its  religious  missions. 
So,  too,  the  modern  experiment  of  Liberia  has  utterly  failed  in  its 
mission  of  civilization,  and,  by  the  candid  confessions  of  those 
who  have  made  sincere  and  unwearied  contributions  to  it,  has 
only  succeeded  in  putting  out  a  picket  line  of  trading  posts  on 
the  borders  of  a  hostile  and  repellant  barbarism.  The  Negro 
within  the  Tropical  dominion  remains  what  he  was  many  centu 
ries  ago ;  implacable  to  the  advances  of  civilization,  or  sus 
ceptible  only  to  the  vices  which  follow  in  its  train.  As  long 
as  he  has  been  known  to  history,  he  has  performed  no  part  in 
it.  He  is  incapable  of  transmitting  knowledge  ;  he  has  never 


128  THE    NEGRO    QUESTION. 

invented  an  alphabet,  or  even  a  system  of  numerals ;  he  is  in 
variably  found  without  any  rudiments  of  cultivation  originated 
by  himself,  and  therefore  essays  without  effect  the  higher  stages 
of  progress.  Civilization  finds  no  foundation  to  work  upon 
in  him  ;  and  what  he  obtains,  even  temporarily  or  in  the  slightest 
degree  from  its  contact,  is  empirical  and  perishes  with  the  sur 
rounding  circumstances. 

A  condition,  such  as  this,  must  rest  on  permanent  and  well- 
defined  causes.  It  fitly  completes  and  closes  the  evidence  of 
the  specific,  permanent,  irrevocable  inferiourity  of  the  Negro 
— an  inferiourity  capable,  it  is  true,  of  a  degree  of  advance  and 
developement  in  exceptional  circumstances  (as  in  the  condition 
of  servitude  and  its  tendency  to  copy),  but  otherwise  and  ul 
timately  hopeless,  the  only  possible  margin  of  improvement 
"existing  within  limits  fixed  and  determinate,  beyond  which  the 
Negro  can  no  more  progress  than  he  can  alter  the  colour  of  his 
skin  or  the  form  of  his  brain. 

The  value  of  this  fact — which  we  shall  take  as  proved  by 
the  summary  of  arguments  above — we  have  already  referred  to. 
So  far  from  being  a  barren  speculation,  we  repeat,  it  involves 
some  of  the  most  important  problems  of  politics  and  society. 
It  establishes  the  true  status  of  the  Negro  ;  it  decides  his  proper 
relations  to  the  white  man ;  it  determines  the  measure  of  his 
limited  improvement  or  comparative  civilization ;  it  indicates 
the  proper  schools  of  that  civilization.  So  far  from  being 
offensive  to  humanity,  it  solicits  for  the  Negro  the  truest 
philanthropy,  the  most  intelligent  and  effective  kindness;  for 
the  recognition  of  his  inferiourity  does  not  diminish,  but  mul 
tiplies  his  claims  on  an  intelligent  benevolence,  and  would  take 
him  from  a  false  condition  to  put  him  in  the  place  that  fits  his 
nature,  suits  his  qualities,  and  therefore  consults  his  happiness. 


THH  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.         129 


IY. 

THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH 

CONDITION    AND    TEMPER    OF    THE    SOUTHERN    PEOPLE. 

The  black  thread  of  the  Negro  in  the  -web  of  party — Division  of  the  Anti-Slavery  party 
into  Abolitionists  and  Negrophilists — Union  of  these  two  parties  in  Reconstruction — 
Anew  and  enlarged  edition  of  the  " Irrepressible  Conflict" — The  proposition  of 
Negro  Suffrage  scouted  in  the  North — Elections  of  1867  in  Ohio,  Minnesota,  Kansas 
and  New  Jersey — The  homogeneousness  and  political  identity  of  the  nation  risked 
by  the  Negro — A  curious  comparison  by  B.  F.  Butler  between  the  Negro  and  an 
unfortunate  beast — The  ballot,  a  fatal  gift  for  the  Negro — The  "  school "  of  Slavery — 
Extravagant  tribute  of  the  Republican  party  to  the  beneficence  of  Slavery — The 
Negro  obtained  his  maximum  of  civilization  as  a  slave — Temper  of  the  Southern 
people  on  Negro  suffrage — The  theatrical  machinery  of  "the  League" — Solidity  of 
the  Negro  organizations  in  the  South — The  elections  of  18fa7  in  Virginia — A  war  of 
races  imminent — The  prayer  of  the  South  for  peace — Interesting  statement  of 
Ex-Governor  Perry  of  South  Carolina — The  feeling  of  desperation  in  the  South- 
Danger  of  another  and  peculiar  rebellion  there — The  recent  farce  of  Restoration— 
The  lesson  of  Fenianism — A  warning,  and  not  a  threat,  to  the  North. 

The  "black  thread  of  the  Negro  has  been  spun  throughout 
the  scheme  of  Reconstruction.  A  design  is  "betrayed  to  give 
to  him  the  political  control  of  the  South ;  not  so  much  as  a 
benefit  to  him,  not  so  much  out  of  solicitude  for  him — for  a 
solicitude  so  large  and  disproportionate  would  be  curious — as 
to  secure  power  to  the  Republican  party  in  the  North,  and  to 
open  new  issues  for  it,  since  what  .was  supposed  to  be  its 

6* 


130          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

capital  stock  in  controversy — the   Slavery  of  the  South — has 
been  extinguished  in  a  conflict  of  arms. 

There  is  a  distinction,  running  through  the  Anti-Slavery 
party,  which  has  not  generally  been  recognized,  and  which 
claims  here  a  particular  notice.  The  party  contains  two 
distinct  schools,  which  we  may  conveniently  designate  as 
Abolitionists  and  Negrophilists.  We  are  aware  that  many  of 
those  who  made  the  most  violent  war  upon  Slavery  sympathized 
with  the  Negro  under  the  general  head  of  an  oppressed  human 
creature,  not  out  of  any  peculiar  regard  for  his  colour,  or  for 
any  supposed  extravagant  virtues  in  his  African  nature.  They 
adopted  the  cause  of  the  Negro  from  general  motives  of 
humanity ;  they  desired  to  free  him ;  they  desired  to  do  for 
him  such  kindly  offices  as  they  would  do  for  any  suffering 
people ;  but  they  pretended  to  no  special  solicitude  for  the 
black  man,  because  he  was  a  black  man,  nothing  beyond  a 
natural  sympathy  for  the  cause  of  the  oppressed.  The  candour 
of  this  portion  of  the  Anti-Slavery  party  we  may,  and  do 
respect ;  there  was  a  large  generosity  in  it — Quixotic  it  may 
be — but  such  as  hunts  the  world  for  all  instances  of  oppression, 
and  for  all  possible  occasions  of  virtuous  controversy. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  find  in  the  Anti-Slavery  party  a 
positive  and  most  offensive  disease — manifesting  for  the  Negro 
a  singular  affection,  devising  peculiar  rewards  and  gratifications 
for  him,  and  intent  upon  making  him  the  political  pet  and  idol 
of  America.  We  find  this  curious  mania  not  only  in  white 
men  of  mean  and  scurrilous  blood,  but  in  some  of  the  most 
cultivated  ranks  of  Northern  society — represented,  for  instance, 
by  such  men  as  Charles  H.  Sumner.*  It  is  a  diseased  sym- 

*  The  following  reflection  in  a  biographical  sketch  of  Mr.  Sumner  contributed  by  the 
author  to  the  periodical  press  adds  something  for  the  curiosity  of  the  reader : — 

"  To  look  upon  Mr.  Sumner.  as  he  sits  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  in  his  Eng- 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH.          131 

pathy,  probably  growing  out  of  the  excessive  and  impassioned 
contemplation  of  the  Negro,  as  a  victim  of  injustice.  In  some 
cases,  it  proceeds  to  tho  most  offensive  and  abominable 
excesses;  the  black  skin  and  the  most  unclean  peculiarities  of 
the  Negro  become  objects  of  endearment ;  his  African  nature 
is  endowed  with  romantic  virtues ;  and  the  inevitable  tendency 
of  the  mania  is  to  an  amalgamation  of  races. 

These  two  parties — the  Abolitionists  and  the  Negrophilists — 
have  strangly  united  in  the  present  upon  the  Negro,  as  exhibited 
in  the  scheme  of  Reconstruction.  The  latter  party  needs  no  ex 
cuse  for  its  zeal  for  the  black  man.  The  former  would  have,  per 
haps,  been  content  with  liberating  the  Negro,  and  showing  him 

lish  cnt  of  clothes  and  parliamentary  shirt  collars,  and  dainty  linen,  patting  his  mouth  with 
scented  handkerchiefs,  or  stroking  his  body  with  his  large  white,  well-scrubbed  hands, 
one  would  scarcely  imagine  him  a  victim  of  this  loathsome  disease.  But  strange  as  it 
may  appear,  there  are  instances  of  men  of  the  most  fastidious  appearance  and  of  extreme 
physical  culture  having  morbid  fancies  for  the  Negro.  The  maudlin  language  about  an 
'infusion  of  warm  tropical  blood'  into  the  cold  Caucasian  is  not  altogether  that  of  the 
coarse  ignorant  natures  of  the  North ;  and  many  of  our  readers  will  remember  a  Northern 
book  on  'miscegenation,'  in  which  this  beastly  suggestion  was  dished  up  with  the 
garnish  of  a  depraved  philosophy,  and  horribly  tricked  out  with  tawdry  flowers  of  • 
rhetoric.  We  are  aware  that  we  dissect  a  delicate  subject ;  but  we  must  cut  down  to  the 
tumour.  We  regard  '  miscegenation '  as  an  extremity  of  the  disease  of  Ncgrophilism  ; 
yet  an  extremity  more  possible  than  is  generally  supposed  even  in  minds  apparently 
cultivated  and  natures  apparently  clean.  To  a  fanatical  philosophy  like  that  of  Mr. 
Sumner  it  may  happen  that  nothing  is  unclean  ;  and  a  long  habit  of  regarding  the  most 
unsightly  objects  through  the  colours  and  prejudices  of  such  a  philosophy  may  even 
beautify  them,  and  lead  at  last  to  an  unnatural  affection  and  embrace.  Briefly,  there  is 
no  appeal  to  old  opinions  or  old  tastes,  when  the  disorder  of  '  Negrophilism '  is  once 
admitted  into  the  mind;  and  there  is  no  telling  what  transformations  it  may  effect,  or 
what  riots  of  blood  it  may  kindle  in  the  depraved  constitution  of  the  fanatic.  The  dis 
tinctions  between  a  moral  mania  on  this  subject  and  a  positive  physical  disease,  are  alike 
difficult  to  define  or  to  keep  ;  and  we  insist  upon  the  danger  of  an  excessive  regard  for 
the  Negro,  no  matter  on  what  moral  or  sentimental  grounds  it  may  be  first  developed, 
running  at  last  into  physical  affections  of  the  grossest  kind. 

' '  We  are  very  well  informed  that  Mr.  Sumner  has  an  excessive  regard  for  the  Negro. 
We  do  not  exactly  know  what  are  his  opinions  or  practices  on  '  miscegenation '  (which 
Mr.  Wendell  Phillips  has  already  declared  the  hope  and  elixir  of  our  future  national 
life)  ;  we  are  not  prepared  to  say  what  is  the  precise  extent  of  his  disease  of  Negrophi- 
lism;  "and  yet  the  disease  is  so  marked  in  him  that  we  cannot  well  see  where  he  can 
hold  up  the  doctrine  of  equality  short  of  the  sexual  commerce  of  races,  and  how,  with 
his  great  solicitude  for  the  African,  he  can  deny  him  this  bounty  of  the  flesh." 


132  THE  TRITE   HOPE  OF  THE   SOUTH. 

an  ordinary  humanity ;  but  they  were  confronted  by  the  neces 
sity  of  continuing  themselves  .in  power,  and  they  saw  in  the 
Negro  the  instrument  of  their  selfishness  and  ambition.  It  was 
thus  the  Negro  was  elevated  into  an  importance  exceeding  all 
that  he  had  ever  claimed  for  himself,  and  new  demands  put 
into  his  mouth  by  the  emissaries  of  party. 

Never  was  delusion  more  foolish  than  that  we  had  washed  our 
hands  of  the  Negro  in  the  blood  of  the  late  war.  The  Repub 
lican  party  never  entertained  a  thought  of  disbanding  on  the 
conclusion  of  the  war.  It  found  new  occasions  of  controversy 
in  Reconstruction.  .  The  development  was  :  the  political  power 
accumulated  and  energized  by  the  war  continued  in  action, 
with  the  addition  of  a  violent  extreme  wing,  which  always  grows 
out  of  excessive  party  triumphs.  The  South  did  not  see  the 
interminable  question  behind  Slavery,  when  it  most  ignorantly 
congratulated  itself  that  the  abolition  of  the  latter  had  termi 
nated  dispute.  The  spectacle  to-day  is  the  Negro,  who  for  more 
than  two  generations  has  been  the  pest  of  American  politics, 
the  conspicuous  theme  of  legislation,  the  subject  of  new  and 
larger  contentions — a  more  important  instrument  than  he  has 
ever  yet  been  in  the  hands  of  a  radical  and  revolutionary  party. 

We  are  first  struck  by  the  inconsistencies  involved  by  this 
party  in  their  exhibition  of  the  Negro  in  the  Reconstruction 
scheme.  Before  the  war,  they  were  great  sticklers  for  homo- 
gejieousness,  North  and  South.  "  You  cannot,"  said  Mr.  Sew- 
ard,  in  his  famous  evangely  of  the  "  irrepressible  conflict," 
"have  one  section  free  and  the  other  slaveholding."  Is  it  any 
more  possible  to  have  Negro  supremacy  in  one  section  and  white 
supremacy  in  the  other  ? — is  not  the  difference,  indeed,  more 
vast  and  conflicting,  in  proportion  as  the  Negro  is  elevated'  into 
this  new  importance  ?  The  fact  is  the  Republican  party,  in  pro- 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH..         133 

paring  another  and  an  enlarged  edition  of  the  "  irrepressible 
conflict,"  is  drawiag  a  yet^  deeper  line  of  antagonism  through 
the  country. 

The  proposition  of  Negro  suffrage,  imposed  violently  upon 
the  South,  has  been  scouted  by  the  North  when  applied  to  it 
self.  Even  the  most  radical  members  of  Congress  fly  out  against 
it,  when  it  is  to  be  imposed  upon  their  own  States  and  constitu 
encies,  and  in  the  language  of  one  of  them  (Mr.  Spalding,  ol 
Ohio)  declare  that  it  "cuts  directly  across  the  Constitution." 
Another  member  of  the  Republican  party  in  Congress  (Mr. 
Lawrence,  of  Pennsylvania)  adds  the  bold  assertion  that  nine 
out  of  every  ten  Republicans  in  his  district  sustain  the  decision 
of  Judge  Agnew,  that  Negroes  may  be  excluded  from  the  com 
pany  of  white  men  in  railroad  cars  and  public  conveyances. 
In  fact,  on  no  modern  question  of  politics  have  the  people  of 
the  North  shown  more  sensitiveness  than  on  that  of  entertaining 
the  Negro  as  an  equal  at  the  polls. 

In  1865,  Negro  suffrage  was  voted  down  in  Connecticut,  Colo 
rado,  Wisconsin,  and  Minnesota.  April  6, 1867,  a  joint  resolu 
tion  was  passed  by  the  Legislature  of  Ohio  to  propose  an  amend 
ment  to  the  State  Constitution,  striking  the  word  "white" 
from  the  franchise  law  of  the  State.  A  popular  vote  on  this 
amendment  was  taken  at  the  October  election,  when  it  was  re 
jected  by  a  majority  of  50,269.  In  November,  1867,  a  special 
vote  was  taken  in  Minnesota  and  Kansas  on  proposed  amend 
ments  to  the  State  Constitution,  extending  the  elective  fran 
chise  to  persons  irrespective  of  colour.  In  both  States,  the 
amendments  were  rejected,  by  1,248  majority  in  Minnesota 
and  9,071  majority  in  Kansas.  In  New  Jersey,  the  issue  was 
indirectly  presented  in  the  election  of  members  of  the  Legisla 
ture,  and  the  people  returned  a  similar  verdict ;  a  majority  of 


134          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

16,354  against  the  proposition  to  enfranchise  the  Negro.  The 
four  States*  which  made  such  an  exhibition  of  popular  sentiment 
in  the  elections  of  last  year,  contained,  according  to  the  census- 
of  1860,  fully  two  millions  of  whites  and  about  thirty  thousand 
Negroes.  If  the  Northern  people  could  not  permit  this  com 
paratively  small  number  of  Negroes  within  their  borders  to 
rote — if  they  could  not  risk  the  experiment  of  Negro  suffrage 
to  this  very  limited  extent  among  themselves — on  what  princi 
ple  of  justice  are  we  to  account  for  the  fact  that  so  many  of  the 
Republican  party  insist  that  Negroes,  supposed  to  be  inferiour 
in  capacity  to  the  freed  blacks  in  the  North,  should  vote  in 
States  of  the  South,  where  they  are  nearly  equal  in  numbers  to 
the  whites,  and  have,  indeed,  been  made  to  exceed  them  by  the 
frauds  of  registration ! 

In  view  of  the  figures  above,  we  apprehend  two  facts :  first, 
the  hopelessness  of  imposing  Negro  suffrage  on  the  North,  and, 
second,  granting  it  to  be  imposed,  the  little  effect  it  would  have 
on  their  politics  and  society,  its  incapability  of  qualifying  the 
irrepressible  conflict  between  Negro  supremacy  in  the  South  and 
white  supremacy  in  the  North.  Admit  Negro  suffrage  in  the 
North,  and  yet  the  supremacy  of  the  white  man  is  assured 
there — the  most  permanent  principle  in  their  society.  The 
conflict  is  that  of  "  enduring  forces"  between  the  reign  of  the 
white  man  in  the  North  and  the  domination  of  the  Negro  in 
the  South;  the  homogeneousness  of  the  nation  is  gone;  there 
is  no  longer  a  political  identity  in  America;  and  a  conflict, 
more  vast  and  insuperable  than  ,  any  of  the  past,  has  taken 
place  in  our  history.  The  Negro  is  no  longer  a  topic  of  division 
between  the  two  sections  as  a  slave,  but  as  a  master  and  ruler, 

*  We  may  add  the  State  of  Michigan  in  1868 — rejecting  Negro  suffrage,  although  it 
gave  the  Republican  ticket  a  majority  of  over  twenty-nine  thousand  in  18C6 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.          135 

asserting  his  political  individuality,  impressing  society  with 
his  laws,  and  exhibiting  his  peculiar  nature  in  acts  of  authority. 

In  view  of  this  terrible  sacrifice  of  the  homogeneousness 
and  identity  of  the  nation,  we  have  only  this  oft  repeated 
argument  of  the  Radicals  :  that  there  is  a  peculiar  reason  for 
endowing  the  Negro  in  the  South  with  the  suffrage ;  that  it  is 
necessary  for  his  protection.  We  deny  this  necessity.  The 
Negro  may  be  protected  without  the  ballot  fully  as  well  as 
other  political  minors  in  the  community — unnaturalized  foreign 
ers,  women,  and  persons  not  arrived  at  the  age  of  twenty-one, 
all  of  whom  have  their  civil  rights,  without  possessing  the 
elective  franchise.  But  even  admit  the  necessity  of  protection, 
concede  to  the  Radicals  all  they  have  ever  asked  out  of  their 
peculiar  tenderness  for  the  Negro,  and  yet  we  are  prepared 
to  say,  it  is  a  small  consideration,  an  utterly  inferiour  conside 
ration,  in  view  of  that  vast  conflict  which  it  must  cause  in  our 
political  system,  a  hiatus  in  our  civilization,  a  surrender  of  the 
great  interests  of  American  progress  to  solicitude  for  an  infe 
riour  race ! 

And  here  we  must  surprise  the  reader  by  a  quotation  from 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  our  living  politicians.  The 
extract  is  from  a  speech  of  the  notorious  Benjamin  F.  Butler, 
delivered  in  Salem,  Massachusetts,  shortly  after  the  John 
Brown  raid,  and  intended  to  re-assure  the  South.  It  is 
strange,  indeed,  to  find  this  man  of  all  others,  supplying  to 
the  South  the  thought  of  the  infinite  inferiourity  of  the  Negro 
by  the  side  of  the  interests  of  the  white  man.  The  declarations 
he  made,  in  1860,  are  so  applicable  to  questions  now  in  Congress. 
and  contain  such  a  clear  and^  admirable  doctrine  for  the 
South  in  her  present  situation,  that  the  reader  is  likely  to  pause 
upon  them  with  curious  reflections. 


136          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  'SOUTH. 

"  The  mistake  is,  we  look  at  the  South  through  the  medium  of  the 
Abolitionists — a  very  distorted  picture.*  **  These  questions  "  [those 
of  freeing  and  enfranchising  the  Negro]  "  which  to  us,  locally,  are  of  so 
little  practical  consequence  as  hardly  to  call  our  attention,  are  to 
them  the  very  foundations  of  society — ominous  of  rapine,  murder  and 
all  the  horrours  of  civil  war.  And  because  the  discussions  of  the 
question  about  Negro  emancipation  do  not  disquiet  us  here,  we  should 
be  blind  indeed  not  to  see  the  wide  difference  of  such  discussions  to  them, 
if  the  results  are  reduced  to  practice.*  *  *  We  have  the  right  to  form 
our  own  domestic  institutions,  as  we  please,  to  our  own  liking,  and 
not  to  any  other  community's  liking,  and  will  exercise  that  right, 
and  under  the  Constitution  must  be  protected  in  that  right.  Every 
other  State  has  the  same  right,  to  please  herself  in  her  own  institu 
tions,  and  is  not  obliged  to  please  us  in  her  selection  of  them',  and 
as  in  duty,  and  of  right  bound  to  do,  we  will  protect  her  in  that 
right,  whether  we  like  them  or  not.  *  *  *  Human  progress  is  not  to 
be  set  back  a  thousand  years,  because  of  the  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
the  supposed  rights  and  interests  of  a  few  Negroes.  As  well  might 
the  peasant  expect  the  Almighty  to  stay  the  thunder-storm  which 
by  its  beneficent  action  clears  the  atmosphere  of  a  nation  from  pesti 
lence,  lest  the  lightning  bolt  should  in  its  flash  kill  his  cow." 


We  nave  not  exnioitea  tms  passage  from  the  political  life  of 
Butler  as  mere  proof  of  the  inconsistency  of  the  man,  astound 
ing  as  it  is.  -No  additions  are  needed  to  his  infamy.  We  have 
quoted  it  in  a  higher  interest ;  for  the  truth  it  contains,  for  its 
real  intellectual  merit.  We  are  not  prepared,  indeed,  to  go  to 
the  length  of  the  brutality  which  likens  solicitude  for  the 
Negro  to  care  for  a  beast  of  the  field.  But  we  do  recognize 
the  plain,  general  truth  that  the  interest  of  the  Negro  is  in- 
feriour  to  that  of  the  white  man,  and  that  our  civilization  and 
progress  are  not  to  be  interrupted  and  surrendered  on  conces 
sions  to  him:  9 

It  has  remained  for  the  Chicago  Platform  to  suggest  yet 
another  argument,  or  semblance  of  argument,  for  Negro 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.          137 

Suffrage,  as  in  the  South,  and  to  make  a  somewhat  novel 
version  of  this  article  of  the  Radical  creed,  as  will  -appear 
from  the  following  language : — 

"  The  guaranty  by  Congress  of  equal  suffrage  to  all  loyal  men  at 
the  South  was  demanded  by  every  consideration  of  public  safety,  of 
gratitude,  and  of  justice,  and  must  be  maintained;  while  the  question 
of  suffrage  in  all  the  loyal  States  properly  belongs  to  the  people  of 
those  States.'* 

The  idea  of  Negro  Suffrage  as  a  punishment  of  the  South 
logically  admits  that  it  is  an  odious  and  unnatural  condition. 
But  apart  from  this  consideration,  to  fasten  a  measure  on  one 
section  of  the  Union,  for  whatever  motive,  and  to  lift  it  from 
the  other  section,  not  only  creates,  as  we  have  seen,  a  social 
chasm,  but  is  of  that  inequality  of  laws,  which  is  the  prime 
condition  of  despotism,  and  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  repub 
lican  government.  It  is  the  inequality,  rather  than  the 
severity  of  laws,  that  constitutes  despotism.  The  most  severe 
laws  have  been  tolerated,  and  have  existed  in  republican  forms 
of  government,  as  long  as  they  have  borne  equally  upon  the 
community,  and  have  been  fairly  distributed  over  the  surface 
of  society;  but,  no  matter  what  the  law,  or  what  its  merits  in 
the  abstract,  the  moment  it  operates  unequally,  burdens  one 
portion  of  the  community  and  exempts  the  other,  it  becomes  a 
hateful  edict  and  a  despotic  oppression.  This  is  the  first 
lesson  of  constitutional  liberty. 

No  party  in  the  government  at  Washington,  even  if  the 
subject  of  suffrage  is  fully  admitted  to  be  within  its 
jurisdiction,  has  -the  right  to  propose  one  measure  of  it 
for  the  South,  even  as  a  penalty  of  rebellion,  and  another 
measure  of  it  for  the  North,  even  as  a  reward  for  loyalty. 
We  state  the  proposition  as  the  Radical  party  itself  has  put 


138          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

it,  in  the  very  best  terms,  admitting  its  pretensions  on  every 
member  of  the  argument,  to  show  most  conclusively  its 
essential  absurdity.  But  does  not  the  antithesis  of  the  propo 
sition  read  more  truly  in  the  words  with  which  Thurlow  Weed, 
an  eminent  Republican,  has  paraphrased  it :— "  to  declare  that 
in  one  part  of  the  country,  where  coloured  suffrage  is  likely  to 
prove  ruinous,  it  may  be  established  and  enforced  by  superiour 
power;  while  in  another,  where  such  suffrage  would  be  too 
inconsiderable  to  be  noticed,  it  may  be  left  to  the  people  who 
have  declared  against  it!"  This  is  the  true  ground  of  dis 
tinction  in  the  proposition,  as  between  North  and  South ;  but 
even  without  reference  to  it,  rejecting  every  thing  ad  captandum, 
the  division  of  so  large  a  measure  of  legislation,  the  inequality 
of  a  law  at  the  very  basis  of  political  society,  would  be  essen 
tially  despotic,  inevitably  disorganizing,  strange  to  every 
tradition  of  the  country,  and  utterly  inadmissable  in  "a 
government  of  the  people." 

Those  who  ask  the  ballot  for  the  Negro  sink  at  every  step 
in  the  argument.  It  involves  a  price  too  great,  even  if  he 
needed  it ;  but  we  have  argued  that  it  was  not  necessary  for 
his  safety  or  preservation ;  and  now  we  advance  to  yet  another 
argument :  that  so  far  from  the  ballot  being  a  benefit  to  him,  it 
would  involve  him  in  a  competition  with  the  white  man,  eventu 
ally  ruinous  to  himself,  and  be  a  direct  invitation  to  what  he 
has  most  to  fear — a  war  of  races.  Let  him  beware  o£  the 
poisoned  gift.  The  ballot  precipitates  the  war  of  races,  to 
avoid  which  should  be  the  highest  effort  of  American  statesman 
ship.  It  is  the  declaration  of  war  between  the  Negro  and 
the  white  man. 

There  is  an  instinct  of  humanity,  a  great  unwritten  law  of 
nations,  that  one  race  only  ought  to  have  political  power  in 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.          139 

the  same  country,  each  race  in  its  own.  It  is  a  law  that  leads 
to  internal  peace,  and  to  the  national  development  and  prosper 
ity  which  that  peace  insures.  The  Negro  has  shown  himself 
sensible  of  it,  and  wherever  he  has  had  power  as  a  race,  he  has 
been  unwilling  to  share  it  with  the  white  man — as  in  Spain, 
in  San  Domingo,  and  in  Liberia.  In  the  latter  country  the 
white  man  is  excluded  by  legislation  from  all  political  offices. 
It  is  the  result  of  a  natural  law.  For  centuries  the  Negro  has 
been  known  in  both  hemispheres  as  the  enemy  of  the  white 
man ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  he  has  never  lived  in  friend 
ship  with  him  except  as  a  slave.  From  Slavery  he  has  derived 
all  his  civilization  and  benevolence. 

The  so-called  Slavery  of  the  South  is  properly  defined  as 
the  school  of  the  Negro.  Declaim,  as  men  may  of  the  vices  and 
horrours  of  that  institution,  we  yet  have  the  unanswerable  fact 
that  it  carried  the  Negro  to  a  higher  civilization  than  any 
other  agency  ever  applied  to  him ;  and  the  Republican  or 
Radical  party  in  claiming  for  him,  that  he  is  already  qualified 
for  the  suffrage,  implies  a  higher  tribute  to  Slavery  than  its 
most  zealous  advocates  ever  urged — -for  it  is  Slavery  that  has 
educated  the  Negro  to  the  point  where  the  Republicans  claim 
he  is  fit  to  vote  and  act  equally  with  the  white  citizen — Slavery, 
which  has  thus  returned  him  from  its  bonds  an  intelligent 
creature,  fit  at  once  for  all  the  functions  and  trusts  of  the  citi 
zen  !  It  is  curious  in  what  inconsistency  the  Republican  party 
involves  itself,  when  in  one  breath  of  declamation,  as  that  of 
the  rhetorical  Mr.  Bingham  of  Ohio,  it  describes  the  abolition 
of  Slavery  as  "  taking  off  the  chains  that  have  bound  down  the 
higher  .faculties  of  the  Negro  for  more  than  two  hundred  years," 
and  in  another  mood  describes  the  same  event  as  exhibiting  the 
black  man  so  improved  by  his  experience  as  a  slave  from  his 


140  THE  TRUE    HOPE  OF  THF    SOUTH, 

original  pagan  and  savage  condition,  as  to  claim  by  his  intelli 
gence  and  virtue  all  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  the  white 
man. 

But  we  do  not  go  as  far  as  this  extraordinary  tribute  of  the 
Radicals  to  the  beneficence  of  Slavery.  It  is  extravagant 
beyond  all  that  Southern  men  ever  claimed  for  it.  Holding 
that  Slavery  was  a  valuable  school  for  the  Negro,  that  by 
acting  on  his  peculiar  and  strong  imitative  capacities,  it  gave 
him  a  certain  reflected  civilization,  we  yet  do  not  believe  that 
that  civilization  comes  up  to  anything  like  the  point  of  equality 
with  the  white  man,  and  we  are  convinced  that  its  maximum 
was  obtained  in  the  condition  of  subjection  to  the  white  race. 
Slavery  has  improved  and  civilized  the  Negro  to  a  certain  ex 
tent,  and  has  now  left  him  the  subject  of  a  new  experiment. 
We  would  make  that  experiment  kindly  and  tenderly,  although 
we  think  it  vain,  as  we  believe  the  Negro  obtains  his  highest 
development  in  the  convenient  position,  of  a  subordinate  where 
he  copies  and  imitates.  This  being  the  natural  law  of  his  in- 
feriourity,  we  certainly  would  not  force  upon  him  the  destructive 
and  deadly  experiment  of  thrusting  him  into  a  violent  equality 
with  the  white  man  and  substituting  for  the  old  and  useful 
instincts  of  Slavery  the  principles  of  competition  and  rivalry. 
The  Negro  improved  by  copying  the  white  man  ;  Slavery  made 
these  copies  convenient ;  but  he  will  surely  die,  when  the  copy 
is  broken,  and  competition  becomes  the  new  experiment.  It 
is  the  law  of  nature,  and  no  human  legislation  can  change  or 
obstruct  it. 

It  is  then  this  experiment  of  the  equality  of  races,  which 
must  ultimately  sacrifice  the  Negro ;  which  offends  nature's  laws, 
and  thus  provokes  a  sure  penalty ;  which  shuts  up  ten  millions 
of  white  people  in  the  valley  of  humiliation  and  death ;  which 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.  141 

wrenches  all  the  laws  and  traditions  of  the  country  to  a  foreign 
and  violent  purpose  ;  which  legislates  outside  the  Constitution  ; 
which  engulphs  the  landmarks  of  our  history  and  proclaims  the 
most  terrible  and  hideous  revolution  of  modern  times,  that  the 
Radical  party  of  Congress  has  prescribed  as  the  indispensable 
condition  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  South  and  the  restoration 
of  the  Union.  The  policy  is  put  before  our  eyes ',  the  black 
cloud  is  hung  up  in  the  heavens;  the  prophetic  signs  draw 
nigh.  In  the  North,  the  question  of  Negro  reconstruction, 
except  so  far  as  it  carries  with  it  pieces  of  the  Constitution  and 
thus  involves  some  ultimate  questions  of  popular  liberty,  may 
be  a  dull  and  distant  speculation.  But  the  South  is  daily 
crucified  upon  it.  Capital  and  enterprise  are  banished  by  the 
political  commotion  ;  men  cultivate  their  fields  as  if  they  tilled 
the  crust  of  a  volcano,  anxious  only  for  the  one  year's  crop  ; 
there  is  a  daily  terrour  in  every  house  ;  there  is  starvation  in 
the  pale  faces  of  women  and  children ;  and  in  the  eyes  of  des 
perate  men  there  is  a  gleam  like  a  flash  of  swords. 

The  population  of  the  South  is  peculiar.  Be  it  remembered 
that  it  contains  tens  of  thousands  of  men,  who  .have  been  bap 
tized  in  blood,  trained  in  war ;  who  have  stood  on  the  burning 
edge  of  battle  with  their  lives  in  their  hands,  and  have  feared 
nothing.  They  are  a  ready-made  army.  They  are  the  men 
who  count  some  things  worse  than  the  terrours  of  Death ;  more 
terrible  the  dumb  sufferings  of  those  they  love  than  the  loud 
agonies  of  battle  ;  more  terrible  the  wail  of  little  children  cry 
ing  for  bread  than  the  blast  of  destruction  in  their  ears.  Their 
homes  are  ruined ;  their  fields  are  black  and  sterile ;  their  vines 
are  withered ;  and  life  has  but  little  for  them.  There  are 
lengths  of  suffering  and  of  insult  which  these  men  will  not  endure. 
Better  death  than  the  dregs  of  life  ;  better  convulsions  than  the 


142  THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

Stygean  cairn  of  despair;  better  the  hiss  and  the  storm  of  the 
red-winged  battle  than  the  dumb  torment,  the  voiceless  cruci 
fixion  of  the  soul. 

The  condition  of  the  South  is  far  different  from  what  it  was 
in  1865  ;  and  a  war  of  races,  then  treated  only  as  a  distant 
speculation  of  scholars,  has  become  an  imminent  danger  to  all 
practical  men.  At  the  close  of  the  war  the  relations  between 
the  whites  and  the  Negroes  were  kindly  and  amicable  ;  there  was 
a  general  disposition  to  co-operate  in  repairing  the  prosperity  of 
the  country  and  re-building  on  the  ruins  of  the  war.  But  this 
happy  condition  has  been  changed ; .  and  chiefly  through  the 
operation  of  those  political  organizations  of  the  Negro  masses 
in  the  South,  effected  by  emissaries  a^nd. agents  from  the  North 
in  preparation  for  the  State  Conventions  and  the  Presidential 
programme  of  1888.  "  The  League"  has  introduced  a  new  thea 
trical  machinery  in  the  politics  of  the  South,  the  power  of  which 
on  the  peculiarly  strong  imagination  of  the  Negro  is  almost 
incredible.  It  is  like  the  influence  of  religious  superstition  on 
his  African  nature ;  its  commands  are  superiour  to  all  other 
calls  and  necessities  ;  he  will  stop  from  work  "  in  the  middle 
of  the  row  "  to  attend  its  meetings  ;  he  will  slink  away  from 
his  employer,  after  all  protestations  to  the  contrary,  to  vote 
the  Radical  ticket,  at  the  secret  command  of  this  new  political 
society,  which,  indeed,  entirely  possesses  and  governs  him. 
No  one  can  understand  this  peculiar  condition  of  the  Negro 
population  who  has  not  recently  visited  the  South.  Intelli 
gent  people  in  Virginia  were  utterly  surprised  at  the  solid 
array  in  which  the  Negroes  lately  moved  to  the  polls  in  the 
vote  for  the  Convention.  They  understand  it  better  now, 
since  the  black  hand  of  the  League  has  become  visible  in  the 
work. 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.          143 

Since  the  election  there  have  been  counted  in  Virginia  eight 
hundred  societies  of  the  Negro,  bound  by  oaths  and  holding 
secret  meetings.  From  these  conclaves  there  issued  a  solid 
organization  of  blacks  at  the  memorable  election  of  last  year, 
as  completely 'under  the  control  of  their  leaders  as  an  army 
under  its  General  in  time  of  war  ;  not  only  marching  to  the 
polls  to  vote  down  conservative  intelligence,  but  to  vote  down 
all  moderate  men,  even  those  known  as  the  prominent  Union 
men  of  the  State.  Many  persons  of  the  latter  class  were 
hunted  down,  pelted  with  stones ;  the  very  few  Negroes  who 
attempted  to  vote  the  conservative  ticket  were  threatened  with 
death ;  and  the  police  were  assaulted  when  they  attempted  to 
protect  the  conservative  blacks  from  the  violence  of  men  of 
their  own  colour.  These  scenes  of  furious  brutality,  and  the 
evidence  that  ran  through  them  all  of  a  powerful,  permanent 
organization,  likely  to  repeat  them  at  any  time,  have  already 
impressed  thoughtful  men  in  the  South  with  the  idea  that  a 
condition,  so  monstrous,  cannot  be  maintained,  and  that  the 
attempt  of  reprisal  or  correction  is  inevitable. 

It  is  in  view  of  the  solidity  of  these  Nerro  organizations 
that  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  one  of  the  ta  tjst  of  Southern 
politicians  and  the  least  subject  to  alarm,  has  robently  declared 
in  Washington,  with  the  utmost  seriousness,  that  a  war  of  races 
is  imminent,  and  absolutely  unavoidable  if  the  Radical  pro 
gramme  be  prosecuted  to  extremity.  If  the  New  Orleans  riot 
was  repeated  to-day,  it  probably  could  not  be  confined  as  it  was 
in  1866,  but  might  inflame  the  whole  South.  One  blow  struck 
now,  and  thousands  of  armed  men  may  spring  from  the 
ground,  and  unutterable  scenes  of  horrour  ensue.  It  is  this 
danger  that  disturbs  the  whole  South  ;  it  is  the  daily  peril  of 
the  volcano  on '  which  the  home  stands ;  it  is  the  constant 


THP  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

strain  upon  the  imagination — for  who  can  tell  when  Destruc 
tion  may  lift  its  red  torch  in  the  troubled  air,  and  proclaim  the 
conflict. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  worst  element  of  disorder  in  the 
South  attaches  to  the  uncertainty  of  the  future  relations 
between  the  Negroes  and  the  Whites.  We  see  industry  palsied 
in  all  its  branches  from  doubt  of  the  security  of  its  fruits  ;  the 
most  productive  fields  in  the  world  lie  uncultivated,  and  are 
shunned  by  capital ;  the  great  staples,  cotton,*  rice,  sugar  and 
tobacco,  are  no  longer  produced  in  those  quantities  which  for 
merly  made  the  South  a  commercial  empire  ;  the  potential 
wealth  of  those  States,  which  once  nerved  the  arm  of  industry, 
and  enriched  commerce  throughout  the  country,  is  lost  to  the 
nation.  The  future  is  observed  through  disfiguring  mists  of 
uncertainty  ;  and  the  immediate  prospect  of  restoration  to  the 
Union,  under  the  Reconstruction  laws,  is  only  as  Africanized 
States.  From  these  scenes  of  present  ruin  and  desolation 
comes  the  unheeded  prayer  for  peace — that  peace  which  was 


*  The  efforts  of  En  md  to  build  up  her  cotton  culture  have  found  unexpected 
assistance  in  the  politi'ttf-adicalism  of  America.  In  1861,  the  supply  of  cotton  derived 
by  England  from  the^  ^ited  .States  was  seven  out  of  eleven  thousand  millions  of  cwts., 
or  seven-elevenths,  while  last  year,  out  of  a  whole  supply  of  eleven  millions  four  hun 
dred  thousaud  cwts.,  the  United  States  furnished  four  million  cwts.,  or  four-elevenths 
merely.  The  Reconstruction  scheme  of  Congress  operates  as  effectually  as  the  wai 
itself  to  stimulate  and  encourage  the  efforts  which  England  is  making  in  the  cotton 
culture,  and  those  efforts,  through  railroads  in  India,  to  which  the  British  government 
gives  liberal  aid,  are  of  an  imposing  character  India,  where  labour  can  be  had  for  five 
cents  a  day,  is  penetrated  by  railroads  thousands  of  miles  in  length,  and  lines  of  steamers 
communicate  weekly  with  the  Indian  ports.  The  East  Indies  are  HOW  said  to  have 
more  miles  of  railroad  in  operation  than  Spain,  Italy,  Austria  or  Russia,  and  nearly 
half  as  much  as  France.  It  is  not  deemed  impossible  that,  when  the  home  product  of 
England  shall  be  deemed  adequate  to  her  supply,  she  may  even  impose  conditions  upon 
the  import  of  American  cotton.  Such  are  the  lamentable  results  to  our  interests  and 
pride  as  the  greatest  cotton-producing  country  ot  the  world,  which  have  followed  the 
disorganizing  policy  of  Congress,  and  which  will  be  rendered  still  more  ruinous  by  the 
success  of  the  schemes  now  in  progress  for  the  transfer  of  the  whole  political  power  oJ 
the  South  to  the  hands  of  the  blacks. 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.          145 

promised  the  people  of  the  South  as  the  fruit  of  their  suffering, 
and  the  reward  of  their  surrender  in  the  war.  The  prayer 
comes  to  Congress  in  the  most  touching  expressions.  A  late 
petition  from  the  people  of  Alabama  declares  the  willingness 
of  the  people  to  continue  under  military  rule,  rather  than 
accept  restoration  on  the  frightful  condition  of  Negro  domina 
tion,  and  pathetically  entreats  Congress  by  appeals  to  a  com 
mon  race,  a  common  civilization,  a  common.  Christianity,  to 
save  them  from  their  tormentors.  An  address  of  the  white  citi 
zens  of  South  Carolina  similarly  invokes  the  justice  and 
humanity  of  their  race.  They  beg  peace — nothing  more  than 
peace  to  enable  them  to  build  on  waste  places  "  our  temples  of 
worship,  our  sacred  and  ruined  cities  now  lying  in  ashes,  our 
dismantled  dwellings  and  our  prostrate  credit,  for  its  holy 
Christian  influence,  and  for  the  civilization  and  refinement 
which  spring  up  in  its  path."  And  these  noble  and  pathetic 
prayers  are  unheeded  by  Congress,  or  burlesqued  by  a  brutal 
wit,  while  the  insolent  demand  of  the  Negro,  grown  to  a  threat, 
is  treated  with  reverent  regard  and  affectionate  solicitude  ! 

As  evidence  of  the  present  condition  of  the  South  we  have  an 
authority  even  more  temperate  and  judicious  than  Alexander 
II.  Stephens.  We  refer  to  Ex-G-overnor  Perry,  of  South  Caro 
lina — a  gentleman  who  was  inclined  to  the  cause  of  the  Union 
throughout  the  war,  and  who  has  obtained  the  respect  of  all 
parties  for  the  candour  of  his  opinions.  Some  of  the  results  of 
his  personal  observation  in  the  South  are  so  coincident  with 
the  views  we  have  already  expressed,  that  we  may  adopt  them 
in. our  narration.  He  describes  the  Negro  as  "no  longer  that 
industrious,  useful  and  civil  labourer  which  he  once  was,  but  an 
idle  drone  and  pest  to  society.  Inflated  with  his  new  and  mar 
velous  political  importance,  he  has  abandoned  his  former  indus- 

7        •' 


146  THE  TRUE   HOPE  OF  THE    SOUTH. 

trious  habits,  and  spends  his  time  in  attending  public  meetings 
and  loyal-league  gatherings  by  day  and  by  night.  The  whole 
race  seem  disposed  to  quit  their  work  and  resort  to  the  towns 
and  villages,  where  they  may  eke  out  an  idle  and  wretched  ex 
istence  in  pilfering  and  begging."  The  depreciation  of  real- 
estate,  consequent  mainly  on  the  disorganization  of  labour,  Mr. 
Perry  calculates  at  one-half  or  two-thirds  during  the  past  year. 
Property  at  forced  sales  brings  the  most  absurd  trifles.  He 
cites  the  instance  of  a  plantation,  well-improved,  containing  two 
thousand  acres  in  Harry  district,  sold  at  public  auction  to  the 
highest  bidder  for  five  dollars !  No  one  wants  land  when  there 
is  no  labour  to  put  upon  it.  "A  great  many  persons,"  says 
Mr.  Perry,  "  are  moving  from  the  lower  country,  where  there 
are  so  many  Negroes,  and  that  section  of  South  Carolina  is 
destined  to  become  a  wilderness.  The  same  thing  must  occur 
in  many  portions  of  Mississippi  and  other  States.  A  gentleman, 
just  returned  from  Mississippi,  testifies  that  lands  which  rented, 
in  1866,  for  fourteen  dollars  per  acre  were  now  offered  at  two 
dollars  per  acre,  and  no  one  would  take  them."  The  condition 
of  affairs  is  summed  in  the  following  language :  "  our  fields  and 
plantations  are  uncultivated,  the  country  pauperized,  at  the 
point  of  starvation  and  filled  with  every  grade  of  crime."  After 
describing  the  condition  atfd  temper  of  the  South  in  different 
details,  Mr.  Perry  concludes:  "The  present  military  force 
will  have  to  be  kept  up  to  maintain  peace  between  the  two  races, 
and  there  is  no  certainty  of  their  ability  to  do  this  long.  I 
have  for  some  time  thought  that  when  the  Negro  government 
went  into  operation,  it  would  be  impossible  to  preserve  the  peace 
of  the  country.  A  war  of  races  must  ensue." 

We  have  sufficiently  traced  some  of  the  most  unhappy  ele 
ments  of  disorder  in  the  South  to  the  demoralization  of  the  Ne- 


THE  TRUE    HOPE  OP  THE    SOUTH.  147 

gro.    We  pass  to  another  point  in  the  same  field  of  observation. 
There  is  another  danger  than  that  of  a  war  of  races. 

If  we  regard  the  lessons  of  history,  the  condition  of  the  South 
is  one  of  real  alarm ;  because  the  people  there  are  evidently 
verging  to  desperation,  and  this  condition  of  mind  is  precisely 
that  in  which  the  worst  and  fiercest  commotions  take  place. 
True,  the  South  is  incapable  of  a  large  and  organized  contest  of 
arms;  she  has  not  the  material  or  apparatus  for  another  war, 
and  her  ^pirit  is,  in  a  measure,  constrained  by  her  poverty  of  re 
sources.  But  it  is  not  improbable  that  her  patience  may  break 
at  last,  and  that  she  may  take  that  wild  and  desperate  recourse 
to  arms,  in  which  a  people  maddened  under  despotism  have  even 
sought  vengeance,  where  they  could  not  accomplish  relief.  So 
?ar  her  patience  has  been  exemplary ;  with  the  cessation  of  the 
war  there  was  a  cessation  of  all  smaller  essays  of  violence,  almost 
.mparalleled  in  history ;  and  those  who  had  supposed  that  the 
jreat  contest  could  only  terminate  with  a  dissipation  into  the 
adventures  and  outrages  of  guerillas,  were  agreeably  surprised 
at  the  solid  and  perfect  peace  which  ensued  almost  immediately 
on  Lee's  surrender.  For  nearly  three  years  thereafter  the 
South  has  kept  a  peace  more  profound  than  perhaps  ever  fol 
lowed  upon  a  war  of  such  extent  and  violence.  Her  people 
have  hitherto  been  patient  even  under  the  worst  excesses  of 
Radical  rule,  because  they  have  been  fed  with  hopes  and  amus 
ed  with  prospects  from  one  political  season  to  another.  But 
there  is  now  apparent  danger  that  the  Radical  party  may  experi 
ment  on  that  patience  too  long.  They  may  plant  |oo  many 
thorns  in  the  path  of  "reconstruction."  The  people  of  the 
South  have  waited  upon  the  political  "problem  "  at  Washing 
ton  only  to  find  it  become  more  and  more  involved  and  painful; 
we  already  hear  the  mutter  of  desperation ;  and  before  her 


148  THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

white  population  is  driven  into  the  fatal  angle  of  Negro  supre 
macy,  the  last  corner  of  their  extremity,  there  is  fear  the  ground 
will  be  marked  with  the  blood  of  a  desperate  and  indiscrimi 
nate  conflict. 

It  is  proper  that  we  should  understand  here  that  certain  recent 
proceedings  of  Congress,  ostensibly  admitting  representatives 
from  Southern  Sta  es,  so  far  from  having  advanced  Reconstruc 
tion  a  single  logical  readth,  have  really  turned  back  the  problem 
to  its  first  premises  and  have  accomplished  nothing  more  than 
an  ostentatious  f9'.<ie.  Some  thoughtless  minds  have  leaped  to 
the  congratulation  that  certain  Southern  States  have  at  last 
been  re-admitted  into  the  Union,  when  the  fact  is  that  they  are 
still  excluded,  in  every  true  and  logical  sense,  from  the  equal 
benefits  of  the  Union,  and  exist  only  as  nondescript  appendages 
of  territory  under  permanent  disabilities,  insulted  by  the  farce 
in  which  they  have  been  marshaled  as  States  restored  to  their 
political  rights.  Indeed,  the  prospect  of  restoration  appears 
further  off  than  ever,  and  the  problem  of  Reconstruction  becomes 
more  confused  and  unmanageable,  as  new  laws  thicken  around 
it. 

When  some  months  ago  Alabama*  applied  for  admission  into 
the  Union,  the  proceedings  of  Congress  were  tantamount  to  a 
confession,  that  it  was  intellectually  incompetent  to  deal  with 
the  problem  of  the  restoration  of  the  South.  In  this  case  the 
whole  matter  of  Reconstruction  was  remitted  to  a  "provisional 
government,"  returned,  indeed,  to  that  policy  which  was  so  vio 
lently  and  summarily  condemned  in  the  President.  The  alterna 
tive  was  to  exclude  Alabama,  or  to  require  her  to  relinquish 
her  sovereignty,  on  coming  into  the  Union.  The  difficulty  in 
the  mind  of  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens,  which  he  freely  confessed  in 

*  The  papers  in  the  case  of  Alabama  showed  that  only  about  6,000  whites  voted  on 
the  new  constitution. 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH.          149 

the  course  of  debate,  was  not  that  the  Constitution  which  this 
State  tendered  had  not  been  adopted  by  the  majority  of  regis 
tered  votes,  but  that  it  might  afterwards  be  changed,  and  that, 
therefore,  a  condition  should  be  attached  to  the  act  of  admission, 
to  the  effect  that  the  people  of  Alabama  should  not  make  what 
laws  they  like,  but  only  what  Congress  dictated — a  singular 
mode,  truly,  of  guaranteeing  a  "republican  form  of  govern 
ment"! 

It  has,  indeed,  been  in  such  delay  and  entanglement  of  Re 
construction ;  such  broken  promises;  such  "confusion  worse 
confounded,"  that  the  South  has  found  her  patience  nearly 
expended,  her  hopes  tantalized,  and  her  resolution,  no  longer 
confined  within  the  bounds  of  prudence,  vaguely  wandering  to 
meditations  of  violence. 

The  issue  was  again  presented  to  Congress  by  the  application 
of  Arkansas,  and  the  condition,  indicated  by  Mr.  Stevens,  was 
renewed  to  the  effect  that  she  should  part  with  her  sovereignty 
— that  she  should  give  an  irrevocable  pledge,  never  to  change 
or  dimmish  the  concession  of  unlimited  and  unqualified  Negro 
suffrage.  In  the  case  of  five  other  Southern  States  (North  Caro 
lina,  South  Carolina,  Louisiana,  Georgia  and  Alabama — the 
last  making  a  second  application  for  the  admission  of  her  repre 
sentatives)  this  pledge  has  ultimately  been  exacted  by  the 
House  of  Representatives,  with  some  other  conditions,  in  the 
following  verbose  form — 

"  That  the  Constitutions  of  said  States  shall  never  be  amended  or 
changed  so  as  to  discriminate  in  favour  of  or  against  any  citizen,  or 
class  of  citizens,  of  the  United  States,  in  their  right  to  vote,  who  are 
now  entitled  to  vote  by  said  Constitutions  respectively,  except  as  a 
punishment  for  such  crimes  as  are  now  felonies  at  common  law, 
whereof  they  shall  have  been  duly  convicted ;  and  no  person  shall 
ever  be  held  to  service  or  labour  as  a  punishment  for  crime  in  said 


150  THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

States,  except  by  public  officers  charged  with  the  custody  of  convicts 
by  the  laws  thereof;  and  that  so  much  of  the  seventeenth  section  of 
the  fifth  article  of  the  Constitution  of  the  State  of  Georgia,  as  gives 
authority  to  Legislatures  or  Courts  to  repudiate  debts  contracted 
prior  to  the  1st  day  of  June,  1865,  and  similar  provisions  in  all  the 
other  of  the  Constitutions  mentioned  in  this  bill,  shall  be  null  and 
void  as  against  all  men  who  were  loyal  during  the  whole  time  of  the 
rebellion,  and  who  during  that  time  supported  the  Union,  and  they 
shall  have  the  same  rights  hi  the  courts  and  elsewhere  as  if  no 
rebellion  had  ever  existed." 

The  bill  from  which  we  have  quoted  was  carried  through  the 
House  almost  without  debate ;  without  effort  to  procure  infor 
mation  as  to  the  nature  of  these  Constitutions,  the  vote  upon 
them  in  detail,  or  their  practical  workings  with  reference  to  the 
ordinary  interests  of  the  communities  upon  which  they  were 
enforced.  In  many  of  these  Constitutions,  apart  from  the  topic 
of  the  Negro,  were  singular  excrescences  of  legislation ;  and  to 
all  of  them  attached  a  story  of  fraud  and  corruption.  A  South 
ern  correspondent,  treating  of  these  reconstructed  Constitutions 
says  :  "  In  South  Carolina,  Alabama,  and  Arkansas,  the  Legis 
lature  can  keep  up  standing  armies  in  time  of  peace,  and  in 
North  and  South  Carolina,  and  Arkansas,  children,  irrespective 
of  colour,  are  to  be  compelled  to  go  to  the  public  schools  together, 
unless  privately  educated  by  their  parents.  In  the  Mississippi 
Convention,  now  [May  15,  1868]  in  the  127th  day  of  its  session, 
at  a  cost  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars  already,  there  are  but 
five  white  native  Mississippians  out  of  the  whole  one  hundred 
delegates.  In  South  Carolina,  there  are  sixty-five  Negroes  in 
the  House  and  nine  in  the  Senate,  and  these  ignorant  creatures, 
who  outnumber  the  whites  on  joint  ballot,  only  pay  $187  25 
taxes,  though  their  majority  gives  them  full  power  of  taxing 
all  the  property  of  the  State.  Fifty-seven  of  these  Negroes  pay 


THE  TRUE    HOPE  OF  THE    SOUTH.  151 

no  tax  at  all,  and  of  the  seventy  white  members  thirty-six  pay 
no  taxes  either,  and  the  balance  of  them  only  $368  80 ;  so  that 
the  whole  South  Carolina  Legislature  only  pay  $496  65  of  the 
taxes  it  is  to  impose." 

This  budget  of  curiosities  comes  in  the  vehicle  of  the  press. 
There  was  no  disposition  of  the  Radical  party  in  Congress  to 
ventilate  them,  or  to  give  any  information  on  a  subject  on  which 
they  proceeded  to  pass  important  and  historical  legislation. 
Nor  was  there  any  explanation  afforded  even  of  the  condition 
proposed  by  Mr.  Stevens,  invading  the  relief  sections  of  these 
Constitutions  in  reference  to  debts  contracted  during  the  war, 
and  curiously  giving  pecuniary  premiums  to  Union  men.  Even 
this  remarkable  novelty  was  passed  almost  without  debate ;  and 
all  efforts  to  criticise  a  body  of  legislation,  so  large  and  various, 
were  peremptorily  suppressed. 

But  it  is  not  of  this  haste  of  legislation  that  we  design  to 
complain  in  this  place,  or  of  the  customary  suppression  by  an 
unscrupulous  party  of  all  statements  of  the  means  by  which  it 
obtains  its  ends.  We  have  referred  particularly  to  this  pre 
tended  restoration  of  States  to  the  Union  as  an  insult  to  the 
intelligence  of  the  South,  and  a  new  provocation  to  its  patience. 
It  is  but  a  farce  ;  a  prolongation  of  the  real  problem  of  Re 
construction,  which  can  never  be  completed,  until  the  Southern 
States  are  re-admitted  on  the  terms  only  of  the  Constitution, 
taking  their  equal  and  accustomed  places  in  the  Union.  The 
intelligence  of  the  South  so  far  from  being  pleased  with  these 
recent  proceedings  of  Congress,  described  in  the  extract  of 
legislation  we  have  just  quoted,  resents  them  as  a  deception 
and  snare.  Even  the  New- York  Times,  an  organ,  in  many  re 
spects,  of  the  Radical  party  in  Congress,  is  forced  to  confess  that 
it  has  yet  done  nothing  to  justly  determine  the  essential  ques- 


152          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

tions  of  Reconstruction.  This  journal  says:  "Has  the  funda 
mental  condition  of  the  Arkansas  bill  been  wisely  determined  as 
a  precedent  to  be  followed  in  admitting  other  States  ?  Universal 
suffrage  has  been  made  the  corner-stone  of  Reconstruction,  but 
should  it  be  so  engrafted  upon  ten  States  that  their  own  people 
shall  be  deprived  of  the  power  to  introduce  modifications? 
We  say  nothing  now  as  to  the  difficulties  inseparable  from  at 
tempts  to  render  partisan  dogmas  irreversible.  We  might  ask, 
how  a  tradition  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  can  become  vital  in 
self-governing  communities,  and  how  Congress  proposes  to 
enforce  the  condition,  if  the  reconstructed  States  choose  here 
after  to  disregard  it.  Viewed  from  a  critical  stand-point,  the 
whole  subject  is  so  beset  with  difficulties,  constitutional  and 
logical,  that  we  doubt  the  ability  of  any  man  to  see  his  way 
clearly  to  the  end  of  the  road  on  which  the  country  has 
entered.  " 

Reconstruction,  in  its  just  constitutional  sense  is  still  far 
off;  it  will  probably  never  be  accomplished  by  the  present 
party  in  power ;  the  whole  ground  of  legislation  will  have  to  be 
traversed  again  ;  and  the  serious  question  is  whether  the  South 
may  not  be  hurried  to  violence,  as  persecution  presses,  and 
relief  hangs  in  the  distance. 

If  that  violence  does  ensue,  there  will  be  no  question  of  pru- 
clent  trials  of  war,  no  calculation  of  armies  and  material.  The 
South  is  incapable  of  the.  grand  duello  of  the  past,  but  not  in 
capable  of  the  fierce  and  desultory  rebellion  of  movable  col 
umns  and  raids ;  incapable  of  a  war  of  calculation,  but  not 
incapable  of  a  war  of  vengeance.  She  may  repeat  on  a  much 
larger  scale' the  Fenianism  of  Ireland,  and  may  even  take  a 
lesson  from  the  few  Indian  tribes  which  have  sufficed  to  hold  a 
year's  campaign  against  the  military  power  of  the  United  States. 


THE  TRUE   HOPE  OF  THE    SOUTH.  153 

Such  vengeful  rebellions,  spread  over  the  whole  space  of  a 
country,  renewing  themselves  rather  from  desperation  than 
hope,  and  animated  by  the  willingness  of  a  people  to  die  rather 
than  suffer  longer,  have  sometimes,  as  we  are  assured  by 
history,  been  more  difficult  to  quell  than  regular  wars,  and 
have  shaken  to  their  foundations  governments  stronger  than 
that  at  Washington.  Admitted  that  the  South  must  ultimate 
ly  go  under  in  such  a  contest.  What  of  that !  There  are 
times  when  men  find  their  lives  intolerable,  and  will  wear  them 
on  their  sleeves  in  any  tilt  at  fortune.  Let  Congress  beware 
of  too  much  experiment  on  the  temper  of  the  South,  for  a  re 
bellion  may  yet  be  kindled  there,  in  which  many  men  will  be 
satisfied  to  find  a  funeral  pyre,  provided  it  consumes  with 
themselves  the  structure  of  a  hated  and  intolerable  despotism. 

But  we  are  not  advising  the  South. — We  are  simply 

warning  the  North.  We  have  stated  what  is  the  desperation  of 
the  former;  but  against  that  desperation  we  set  our  faces,  and 
we  write  in  these  pages  to  counsel  the  true  hope  of  the  South. 
If  we  have  represented  an  extreme  case,  it  is  that  the  rebound 
of  the  argument  may  be  more  striking  and  effective.  There  is 
hope  for  the  Sout!i.  Our  mind  has  steadily  held  it  in  all  we 
have  written  up  to  this  point.  From  the  condition  we  have 
described,of  ruin  and  terrour,we  shall  presently  see  emerge  Hope, 
pure  and  beautiful — like  the  white  star,  alba  stella,  rising  after 
the  storms  of  the  day  have  been  spent,  and  the  torn  and  purple 
clouds  have  been  gathered  at  the  gates  of  Evening ! 


154          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH. 


What  is  the  true  hope  of  the  South? — The  new  cause,  or  the  "lost  cause"  revived — 
Abolition  destroyed  the  barrier  of  races,  the  true  value  of  Slavery — The  war,  as 
merely  developing  the  ultimate  issue  of  constitutional  liberty  and  of  our  political 
traditions — "The  South  Victorious" — The  lesson  of  patience — Pessimists  in  Con 
gress— B.  F.  Butler  and  Thaddeus  Stevens — Can  the  Constitution  be  recovered? — 
Survey  of  our  departure  from  it — Peculiar  conditions  for  judging  American  history — 
An  incident  of  the  Philadelphia  Convention — The  elections  of  1867 — Power  of  public 
opinion  in  our  political  system — "White,"  the  winning  word — Declaration  of  Gen. 
Ewing — Congress  translates  the  political  controversy  into  a  war  for  liberty — Two 
parties  left  by  the  war — The  fundamental  idea  of  President  Johnson's  Adminis 
tration — Review  ot  it — Horace  Greeley  and  a  New  Jersey  correspondent — Character 
of  President  Johnson — His  extraordinary  sacrifices  of  power  and  patronage — His 
heroic  attitude  in  Impeachment — A  bold  and  thrilling  avowal — Value  of  his  example 
to  the  South— The  nobility  of  Hope. 

What  is  that  hope  of  the  South,  to  which  we  have  referred  ? 

It  is  the  hope  of  a  new  political  conflict,  in  which  the  South 
will  stand  stronger  than  she  ever  did  before ;  in  which  she  will 
find  occasion  to  repeat  what  were  really  the  most  important 
issues  of  the  war ;  in  which  she  will  have  the  opportunity  to 
regain  her  "lost  cause."  She  may  have  to  endure  much 
before  she  reaches  the  threshold  and  fruition  of  this  new  con- 
^troversy;  but  the  conclusion  is  sure  to  her.f  This  new  cause 
— or  rather  the  true  question  of  the  war  revived — is  the  su 
premacy  of  the  white  race  and  along  with  it  and  strengthening 
it,  the  re-assertion  of  our  political  traditions,  and  the  protec 
tion  of  our  ancient  fabrics  of  government.  This  was  the  ulti 
mate,  logical  problem  of  the  war,  although  the  people  of  the 
South  but  dimly  perceived  it.  They  were  the  wise  men  in  the 
South  who  understood  at  the  beginning,  that  Slavery  was  a 
most  unimportant  object  in  the  war  as  a  matter  of  property ; 
that  the  abolition  of  Slavery  was  not  to  be  greatly  regretted 
as  such — a  small,  incomplete  event — but  it  was  to  be  deplored 


THE  TRUE    HOPE  OF  THE    SOUTH.  155 

as  an  introduction  to  the  terrible  and  greater  question  of  Negro 
equality,  and  such  political  reconstruction  as  we  see  attempted 
to  day.  They  saw  far  ahead,  who  defended  the  condition  of 
Slavery  and  counted  it  in  the  war,  and  throughout  its  term  of 
existence  as  the  barrier  to  the  further  and  vaster  question  of 
races  in  America.  It  was  in  Slavery  as  this  barrier,  that  the 
South  had  its  most  intelligent  and  valuable  interest ;  and  now, 
when  this  barrier  is  broken  down,  there  must  be  a  certain  regret 
for  that — a  loss  in  itself  considerable — yet  a  recognition  that 
the  greater  contest  yet  remains,  and  that  the  higher  cause  of 
the  political  supremacy  of  the  white  man  is  not  lost.  Slavery 
was  an  outwork  of  the  controversy ;  but  the  great  battle  is  yet 
to  be  fought.  The  war  has  eviscerated  and  enlightened  the 
true  question,  and  the  South  prepares  to  contest  it  with  ad 
vantages  she  never  had  before.  When  she  defended  Slavery 
by  her  arms,  she  was  single-handed,  and  encountered  the  anti 
pathies  of  the  whole  world  ;  now,  when  she  asserts  the  ultimate 
supremacy  of  the  white  man,  she  has  not  lost  her  cause,  but 
merely  developed  its  higher  significance,  and  in  the  new  con 
test  she  stands,  with  a  firm  political  alliance  in  the  North,  with 
the  binding  instincts  of  race  in  her  favour,  and  with  the  sym 
pathies  of  all  generous  and  enlightened  humanity  drawn  upon 
her.  Who  will  say,  looking  at  the  situation  from  this  eminence 
of  true  philosophy,  that  there  are  not  some  subjects  of  congratu 
lation  and  hope  for  the  suffering  South  ?  It  is  this  true  hope 
which  the  author  would  proclaim;  summoning  the  South  to  the 
appealed  and  sublime  trial  of  a  cause,  diminished  it  may  be  in 
respect  of  some  subordinate  questions,  but  not  lost  in  the  logical 
and  vital  issue.  It  is  a  new  summons,  a  new  inspiration ;  the 
sound  of  the  trumpets  is  beneath  our  windows,  and  the  blood 
in  our  veins  sings  as  we  go  forth  to  the  last  and  proudest  con 
test  of  American  liberty. 


156          THF  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

"The  South  victorious"  may  yet  be  the  ultimate  conclusion, 
as  Wendell  Phillips  spoke  the  words  at  the  close  of  the  war. 
But  it  will  be  the  victory  of  the  white  man  ;  the  victory  of  the 
Constitution;  the  victory  of  law  and  of  tradition— a  victory 
crowned  with  noblest  fruits  and  flowers— and  may  God  speedily 
grant  it ! 

But  the  people  of  the  South  must  learn  this  sublime  lesson 
of  life  :  that  often  the  grandest  achievements,  the  most  glori 
ous  of  human  endeavours  and  triumphs  must  commence  in  a 
term  of  suffering;  that  patience  is  the  preliminary  period  of 
the  greatest  deeds,  the  condition  that  foreruns  the  most  per 
fect  successes.  He  who  learns  to  wait,  says  a  French  proverb, 
is  master  of  his  fortune.  The  South  must  wait  and  suffer,  be 
fore  she  can  realize  the  true  hope  we  have  declared  for  her. 
She  must  wear  the  crown  of  thorns  before  she  can  assume  that 
of  victory.  She  must  endure  much  from  Congress ;  new  in 
sults,  perhaps  fresh  devices  of  torture ;  treading  the  wine-press, 
traversing  a  dreary  and  crooked  routine ;  but  the  end  comes 
at  last,  and  with  it  the  assured  triumph  and  reward. 

The  precepts  of  religion  and  the  doctrines  of  philosophy 
have  united  in  the  formula  of  Patience  ;  and  history  illustrates 
its  conquests  in  the  lives  of  nations  as  well  as  in  the  individu 
al  examples  of  virtue.  It  is  the  jewel  of  Christianity.  It  is 
the  ornament  of  a  true  manhood.  It  is  the  title  to  all  great 
and  permanent  success ;  and  he  has  imperfectly  apprehended 
the  meaning  of  life,  who  does  not  see  its  relations  to  human 
achievements,  to  the  restoration  of  man  to  whatever  he  has 
forfeited  or  lost.  It  is  at  once  the  consolation  and  lesson  in 
all  afflictions.,  in  ail  trials,  from  the  time  when  man  first  work 
ed  out  his  spiritual  redemption  to  that  in  which  he  regains  any 
lost  cause  of  virtue  and  truth, 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.          157 

"  He  in  whose  hands  all  times  and  seasons  meet, 
What  if  He  hath  decreed  that  I  shall  first 
Be  tried  in  humble  state  and  things  adverse, 
By  tribulations,  injuries,  insults, 
Contempts,  and  scorns,  and  snares,  and  violence, 
Suffering,  abstaining,  quietly  expecting, 
Without  distrust  or  doubt,  that  He  may  know 
What  I  can  suffer,  how  obey  ?     Who  best 
Can  suffer,  best  can  do. — " 

Paradise  Regained. 


There  are  men  in  Congress — false  and  malicious  prophets — 
who  would  persuade  the  South  that  there  is  no  hope  for  her, 
and  that  she  might  as  well  succumb  to  the  fate  they  have  pre 
pared  for  her.  They  scoff  the  idea  of  any  modification  of  their 
terms,  and  they  already  show  a  determination,  not  only  to  dis 
regard,  but  to  defy  whatever  of  change  has  already  been  ap 
parent  in  the  popular  sentiment  of  the  North.  Have  the  last 
year's  elections,  those  great  Democratic  triumphs  in  the  North, 
been  of  any  real,  practical  advantage  to  the  South  ?  They 
have  not  been  followed  by  any  softening  of  the  Reconstruction 
policy  ;  on  the  contrary,  Congress  hardens  and  exaggerates  its 
V  programme  ;  and  we  see  after  these  elections  the  unification  of 
military  rule  in  the  South,  the  dictatorship  of  Grant,  the  out 
rage  of  Stanton,  the  wound  to  the  Supreme  Court,  a  fresh  list 
of  exactions  and  usurpations.  The  South,  says  Butler — 
that  muddy  bilious  monster  of  the  bloated  face  and  the  crooked 
eyes — speaking  to  the  Virginia  Convention,  should  not  hope 
for  better  terms;  for  whatever  other  changes  may  take  place, 
the  Radical  majority  will  be  maintained  in  the  Senate  for  six 
years  to  come.  Then  gets  up  Thaddeus  Stevens,  in  his  un 
clean  old  age,  to  expectorate,  that  the  people  of  the  South  are 
vagabonds  and  nondescripts  "outside  the  Constitution,"  and 


158  THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

that,  so  far  from  being  assured  of  the  end  of  their  sufferings,  the 
st  of  penalties  should  be  prolonged  with  "  mild  confiscation,  " 
and  whatever  else  the  ingenuity  of  their  "  conquerors  "    may 
suggest. 

There  is  a  hideous  significance  about  this  old  man,  preparing 
in  the  last  moments  of  his  own  life  new  instruments  of  torture  for 
the  South,  and  grinning  over  the  work  of  his  bony  and  unsightly 
hands,  at  the  very  side  of  his  own  grave.  It  is  an  exhibition 
of  what  hate  and  passions  legislate  for  the  South — a  picture  of 

diabolism  at  which  the  heart  shudders. 

• 

But  we  are  not  to  be  too  much  impressed  by  the  weak  and 
wicked  declarations  of  such  men.  True,  Congress  may  be  com 
petent,  during  its  ofiicial  term  of  insolent  power,  to  deal  with 
all  the  questions  of  Reconstruction,  and  the  South  may  have 
that  stock  of  iniquity  to  endure,  that  path  of  thorns  to  tread  ; 
but  the  people  speaks  at  last,  and  although  to  retrace  whatever 
steps  may  have  been  taken,  may  be  difficult,  it  will  not  be  im 
possible.  The  political  slate  will  be  wiped  clean  at  last  of 
the  scrawl  and  filth ;  and  as  the  people,  in  our  system  of  govern 
ment,  can  never  surrender  its  conscience  to  any  permanent  form 
of  legislation,  the  work  of  reform  is  never  impossible. 

We  are  not  seriously  disturbed  by  the  rhetorical  bravuras  of 
Ben.  Butler,  or  the  acerb  expectorations  of  Thaddeus  Stevens. 
It  will  not  be  long  before  such  men  descend  to  the  grave,  or  ex 
pire  in  the  pillory  of  public  contempt.  Their  expressions  are 
the  splutter  of  malice.  But  apart  from  their  excess,  we  recog 
nize  a  serious  question,  exciting  the  thoughtful  anxieties  of 
men  least  disposed  to  take  alarm,  or  to  be  moved  by  the  threats 
of  mere  personal  animosity. 

We  are  painfully  aware,  that  some  of  the  most  intelligent 
minds  in  the  country  have  already  entertained  a  question  of 


THE  TRUE  HOPE 'OP  THE  SOUTH.          159 

the  possibility  of  the  restoration  of  the  Constitution,  and  of 
the  recovery  of  the  liberties  it  was  designed  to  secure.'  They 
doubt  whether  this  can  be  ever  accomplished  by  human  means, 
or  otherwise  than  through  some  providential  event  recalling 
the  nation  to  its  better  senses,  and  giving.it  the  opportunity  to 
disembarrass  itself  of  party  and  to  re-adjust  and  settle  the  Con 
stitution  in  the  spirit  of  a  true  patriotism.  They  argue  that 
the  Republican  party  has  already  progressed  too  far  in  power 
to  be  recalled ;  that  they  have  already  destroyed  the  integrity 
and  independence  of  the  Executive  Department ;  that  they 
are  steadily  encroaching  upon  the  Supreme  Court;  that  they 
have  already  broken  up  the  fundamental  and  vital  distribution 
of  political  powers  in  the  Constitution ;  that  at  each  stage  of 
this  progress  to  despotism,  they  have  disdained  the  challenges 
of  popular  sentiment ;  and  that  in  view  of  this  insolent  career 
of  usurpation,  public  interest  has  been  so  tame  and  impassive, 
that  it  is  unlikely  to  make  any  serious  obstruction  to  the  now 
not  distant  consummation  of  the  revolutionary  design. 

It  is  time  to  notice  how  far  we  have  wandered  from  our 
former  political  courses,  and  where  the  tides  of  controversy 
have  carried  us.  In  the  commencement  of  that  great  speech 
of  Daniel  Webster,  in  1830,  which  arrested  the  progress  of  Dis 
union,  the  orator  and  statesman  said  :  "When  the  mariner  has 
been  tossed  for  many  days  in  thick  weather,  and  on  an  un 
known  sea,  he  naturally  avails  himself  of  the  first  pause  in  the 
storm,  the*  earliest  glance  of  the  sun,  to  take  his  latitude,  and 
ascertain  how  far  the  elements  have  driven  him  from  his  true 
course.  Let  us  imitate  this  prudence,  and  before  we  float 
farther  on  the  waves  of  this  debate,  refer  to  the  point  from 
which  we  departed,  that  we  may  at  least  be  able  to  conjecture 
where  we  now  are.'' 


160          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH. 

The  departure  from  the  law  of  the  Constitution,  the  original 
standards  of  our  political  system,  is,  indeed,  vast  and  alarming 
on  the  retrospect.  It  has  taken  place  by  stages  so  numerous 
and  so  ingeniously  calculated,  that  the  public  mind  has  not  been 
sensible  of  the  distance  accomplished;  and  now,  on  looking  back 
upon  it  in  a  single  and  inclusive  view,  the  impression  is  that  of 
painful  surprise.  The  whole  structure  of  the  Government  is 
changed.  The  President  is  no  longer  President,  and  Congress 
claims  nearly  every  power  formerly  exercised  by  him.  By  the 
tenure-of-office  law,  it  has  really  divided  the  Executive  of  the 
nation  into  seven  or  eight  different  Presidents,  independent  of, 
and  superiour  to  the  one  elected  by  the  people,  whom  he  can 
neither  control  nor  remove.  Each  Secretary  is  President 
over  the  whole  sphere  of  his  Department,  having  the  power,  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  President  elected  under  the  Constitution, 
to  order  "  the  army,  to  control  the  national  funds,  to  manage 
foreign  relations,  to  regulate  the  postal  service,  to  administer 
the  affairs  of  the  internal  revenue.  JEach  of  these  seven  or 
eight  Presidents,  again,  is  controlled  by  a  branch  of  Congress, 
and  has  no  other  limit  to  his  authority,  and  no  other  rule  of 
responsibility.  A  right  is  taken  from  the  President  elected  by 
the  people,  without  which  he  cannot  perform  the  duty  expressly 
commanded  of  him,  to  take  "  care  that  the  laws  be  faithfully 
executed,  "  or  fulfill  the  obligation  of  his  official  oath,  to  "pre 
serve,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States."  Other  usurpations  have  taken  place.  Congress  has 
almost  practically  destroyed  the  Executive  office,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  has  erected  absolute  military  despotism  in  ten  of 
the  States  of  the  Union.  It  has  done  this  in  destruction  of 
every  authority  reserved  to  the  States  by  the  Constitution,  as 
well  as  every  individual  right  of  life,  liberty,  and  property, 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH.  1G1 

reserved  in  the  same  way  to  their  people.  It  is  quite  clear 
that  if  these  usurpations  receive  for  much  longer  time  the 
approval  of  the  people,  the  hope  of  the  recovery  of  the  Consti 
tution  is  gone,  and  ultimately  with  it  the  prospect  of  individual 
freedom,  and  the  vital  idea  of  our  institutions. 

"We  state  the  argument  in  its  full  force.  Unhappily,  too,  tho 
attempt  at  despotism  in  America  has  taken  the  form  and 
direction  of  Legislative  usurpations ;  a  form  the  most  danger 
ous  to  liberty,  and  the  most  difficult  of  opposition.  Wo 
recognize  the  force  of  this  peculiar  fact ;  and  we  are  reminded 
of  the  declaration  of  Chatham,  when,  choosing  between  the 
arbitrary  power  of  the  Crown  and  that  of  a  House  of  Commons, 
that  "  tyranny  in  no  shape  is  so  formidable,  as  when  it  is 
assumed  and  exercised  by  such  a  number  of  tyrants."  It  is 
obvious  in  our  system  of  government  that  the  very  worst 
depository  of  unlimited  power  would  be  a  large  legislative 
assembly,  like  Congress;  where  the  very  number  diminishes 
the  responsibility  of  individual  members,  and  enlarges  the 
influence  of  popular  passions.  We  recognize  then  the 
peculiarly  powerful  form  which  the  revolutionary  tendency  in 
our  country  has  assumed;  and  we  recognize,  too,  that  other 
dangerous  element  in  the  situation  : — the  comparative  impas- 
siveness  with  which  the  people  have  viewed  the  usurpations  of 
Congress,  and  its  advance  to  the  eminence  of  despotic 
power. 

Yet  we  do  not  despair  of  the  republic.  It  was  .to  be 
expected  that  the  popular  sensibilities  with  respect  to  liberty 
should  be  greatly  blunted  .by  the  late  war ;  it  was  one  of  the 
worst  effects  of  the  war;  and  the  diminution  since  of  the  con 
cern  of  the  people  in  the  conduct  of  their  government  is  pain 
fully  apparent.  But  that  concern  has  not  entirely  ceased ; 


162          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

and  the  peculiar  intelligence  of  the  American  people  is  sure  to 
reproduce  it.  It  is  with  respect  to  this  intelligence  and  the 
native  generosity  of  Americans,  that  we  claim  some  excep 
tion  from  the  precedents  of  history.  In  America  there  are 
unusual  conditions.  The  extraordinary  intelligence  of  the 
people  enables  them  to  recover  quickly  from  errours  and  sur 
prises  ;  and  their  love  of  liberty  is  so  traditional  that  it  is  not 
likely  to  be  seriously  affected  by  any  temporary  causes.  It  is 
remarkable  that  in  no  circumstances  does  an  invocation  to 
liberty,  even  in  the  merest  platitude  of  a  Fourth-of- July  speech, 
ever  fail  to  awake  in  the  American  heart  a  generous  emotion, 
or  to  obtain  some  response  from  the  multitude. 

An  incident  in  the  Philadelphia  Convention,  summoned  to 
consider  the  state  of  the  country,  in  1866,  gives  proof,  so  shortly 
after  the  war,  that  the  spirit  of  '  76  was  not  entirely  exting 
uished  in  the  American  heart.  The  Convention  adopted  an 
address  which  was  read  from  the  clerk's  desk.  It  .referred  to 
the  usurpations  already  commenced  by  Congress,  to  reduce  the 
Southern  States  to  the  condition  of  conquered  provinces ;  and 
in  this  connection  it  was  declared:  "The  ten  millions  of 
Americans  in  the  South  would  be  unworthy  citizens  of  a  free 
country,  unfit  ever  to  become  guardians  of  the  rights  and  liber 
ties  bequeathed  to  us  by  the  founders  of  this  republic,  if  they 
accept  with  uncomplaining  submissiveness  the  humiliations  thus 
sought  to  be  imposed  upon  them!  "  The  preceding  argumen 
tative  points  of  the  address  had  been  listened  to  with  quiet  and 
deliberate  attention ;  but  when  the  words,  just  quoted,  were 
pronounced,  there  was  a  universal  acclamation  of  the  Conven 
tion  and  its  audience ;  men  rose  to  their  feet  to  cheer  the  senti 
ment,  and  for  a  time  the  voice  of  the  speaker  was  lost  in  the 
volume  of  applause.  The  loud  shout  that  went  forth  from  the 
hall  was  a  signal  and  a  testimony  to  the  country. 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH.          1G3 

It  was  a  happy  augury.  Its  promises  have  not  been  realized, 
•as  rapidly  as  we  could  wish;  yet  there  are  evidences  of  progress, 
and  occasions  of  encouragement.  The  elections  of  the  last  year 
in  the  Pacific,  East,  West  and  Middle  States,  show  an  awakening 
of  the  people — a  disposition  to  recall  from  the  Republican  party 
all  of  that  exceptional  support  which  was  given  it  during  the 
war  for  the  specific  purpose  of  saving  the  Union.  The  people 
demand  the  fruits  of  the  war ;  and  the  same  motives  that  com 
mitted  them  to  a  party,  especially  sworn  to  save  the  integrity 
of  our  institutions,  now  operate  to  recall  the  trust,  and  to  punish 
its  abuse.  Within  one  year,  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  votes 
have  been  gained  by  the  Democratic  party  and  measure  the 
change  of  public  sentiment.*  This  is  the  significant  exhibit  of 

*  In  a  recent  speech  Senator  Doolittle  exhibited  the  following  table  of  votes  to  show 
the  comparative  strength  of  the  conservative  and  radical  parties  in  1866  and  1867.  It 
includes  all  the  States  represented  in  Congress,  except  those  which  held  no  election  in 
1867.  The  table  is  as  follows  :— 


State*. 

.  18 
Dem. 
and 
Con. 

67.  , 
Bad. 

,  18 
Dem. 
and 
Con. 

66.  , 
Sad. 

California          

49,995 
47  575 

42,447 
46,585 
90.798 
10^43 
33,939 
57,462 
22.110 
M,  306 
80,819 
35.809 
35,809 
51,114 
335,099 
243,605 
266,824 
7,554 
31,694 
14.694 
73,637 

26,245 
43,433 
56.483 
8,151 
95,979 
41,947 
40.264 
25.671 
67.708 
15.755 
30.481 
64,336 
352.526 
213,606 
290.01)6 
2,816 
11.292 
14,943 
55,414 

33,221 

43,974 
90,926 
19.370 
58.035 
69,637 
27,351 
91,J!80 
96,746 
35,137 
35  137 
67,5J5 
366,315 
256.302 
307,274 
8,197 
34,117 
20.  r,73 
79,318 

Iowa  .         ..          .   

58,880 
19,421 
103,392 
45.644 
63739 
70,360 
55,865 
32  663 
32,663 
67,468 
373,029 
240,622 
267,751 
5,340 
11,510 
13.  3!  13 
68,873 

Maryland              

Michigan     

New  Hampshire  

New  York 

Ohio      .                 .               

Rhode  Island  

\V  est  Virginia  

TotaU         .       .   .     •-  

1,628,183]  1,578,7481  1,457,146|  1,741,135 
38,  the  whole  number  of  votes  cast  was 
for  Governor  received  49,666;    and  the 
jority  of  1,571. 

*  In  the  elections  in  Connecticut,  April,  18 
97,761.     Of  which  the  Democratic   candidate 
Republican  candidate  48,095  —  a  Democratic  ma 

164  THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

the  elections  of  1867.  If  the  voice  of  these  elections  has  not 
been  so  commanding  as  to  create  a  pause  in  the  despotic  and 
reckless  course  of  Congress,  it  at  least  assures  that  it  will  soon 
summon  to  power  those  who  will  execute  its  will. 

Our  political  system  is  singularly  impressible  by  popular 
sentiment ;  it  has  no  permanent  depositories  of  power ;  it  admits 
no  life  tenures  of  political  office  ;  it  is  emphatically  a  govern 
ment  of  public  opinion.  The  peculiarity  of  popular  revolutions, 
especially  in  America,  is  that  the  reactionary  forces  carry  the 
people  further  in  opposite  direction  than  those  which  pre 
viously  impelled  them.  When  the  reaction  does  occur  from 
the  boundary  of  Radicalism,  we  may  expect  that  it  will  go  over 
a  wide  ground  and  to  a  point  even  of  extreme  virtue. 

The  idea  of  Butler  that  an  accidental  Radical  majority  in 
the  Senate,  for  six  years  to  come,  can  stand  against  whatever 
contrary  influences  there  may  be  in  all  other  departments  of 
the  Government,  and  in  all  other  organs  of  public  opinion,  is 
as  preposterous  as  it  is  insolent.  There  are  limits  to  human 
effrontery ;  limits  where  even  the  vilest  and  most  audacious 
men  cease  to  brave  public  opinion,  and  sink  in  their  own  shame. 
In  the  case  proposed  by  Butler,  the  Senate  could  not  for  a 
week  survive  the  storm  of  public  opinion. 

"  There  are  times,  "  says  an  eloquent  Senator,  "  when  public 
opinion  is  like  a  placid  stream  gently  flowing  within  its  banks, 
when  slight  obstacles  may  for  a  time  arrest,  or  change,  or  divert 
its  course.  Then  it  may  be  said,  the  voice  of  the  people  is  the 
voice  of  the  politicians ;  the  voice  of  the  people  is  the  will  of 
a  party.  But  there  are  other  times  when  the  heavens  are 
overcast,  the  rains  have  descended,  and  the  floods  have  come, 
that  its  majestic  current  rolls  on,  emblem  of  wrath  and  power, 
when  resistance  maddens  its  fury  and  increases  its  streiigth. 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  01'  THE  SOUTH.          165 

Then  it  overflows  its  banks.  The  barriers  of  party  caucusses 
and  politicians  are  all  swept  away,  and  become  mere  flood-wood 
on  the  surface  of  the  troubled  waters.  The  voice  of  the  people 
is  no  longer  then 'the  voice  of  politicians ;  then  it  is  that  the 
voice  of  the  people  is  the  voice  of  Grod.  " 

Let  us  come  back  to  the  true  hope  of  the  South.  It  is  to 
enter  bravely  with  new  allies  and  new  auspices  the  contest  for 
the  supremacy  of  the  white  man,  and  with  it  the  preservation 
of  the  dearest  political  traditions  of  our  country.  "  WHITE" 
is  the  winning  word,  says  a  North  Carolina  paper,  and  left  us 
never  be  done  repeating  it.  The  very  word  moves  the  instincts 
of  the  voting  population  of  the  North ;  it  is  the  irresistible  sym 
pathy  of  races,  which  will  not,  cannot  fail,  when  it  comes  to  the 
last  hug  of  the  conflict,  and  perhaps  blood  spots  the  arena.  It 
is  this  instinct  which  the  South  will  at  last  summon  to  her  aid, 
when  her  extremity  demands  it. 

We  admire  a  recent  exhibition  of  courage  on  the  part  of 
South  Carolina,  a  manly  and  hopeful  protest  which  she  has 
sent  up  to  Washington  against  -the  Constitution  enforced  upon 
her  in  the  farce  of  restoration.  "You  may  make  us  pass," 
say  the  protestants,  "  under  the  yoke  and  we  shall  have  to  do 
so,  but  by  every  means  which  Grod  and  Congress  have  left  us 
under  the  Constitution  and  laws,  we  will  resist  this  domination 
of  an  inferiour  race  by  peaceful  means,  by  political  efforts,  by 
industrial  agencies.  We  will  carry  on  this  political  contest 
until  we  regain  the  control  which  of  right  belongs  to  the  power 
of  mind  and  the  influence  of  virtue.  "  These  words  are  as 
sensible  as  they  are  noble  ;  they  contain  the  best  and  bravest 
spirit  of  the  South. 

The  appeal  of  the  South  to  the  natural  affections  of  race  is 
one  that  essentially  transcends  all  considerations  of  mere  politi- 


1G6          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

cal  party.  It  is  an  appeal  reserved  for  the  last  extremity ;  the 
power  of  which  may  not  be  developed,  when  the  question  is 
merely  speculative,  but  which  essentially  and  instantly  developes 
itself,  when  the  issue  becomes  practical,  and  the  contest  grows 
to  one  of  force.  The  public  has  lately  had  an  assurance  from 
a  distinguished  military  officer,  that,  however  the  army  of  the 
United  States  may  be  attached  to  General  Grant,  and  obedient 
to  the  orders  of  the  political  party  in  power,  it  would  never 
serve  as  an  ally  of  the  Negro  in  a  war  of  races.  "*!  earnestly 
wish,  "  writes  Gen.  Thomas  Ewing,  "  to  be  in  accord  with  the 
great  party  of  my  Kansas  and  army  friends,  and  still  hope  to 
unite  with  them  in  supporting  General  Grant  for  President. 
But  I  want  first  to  know  whether  he  approves  the  Reconstruc 
tion  measures  ;  for  if  he  does,  I  cannot  support  him.  I  rega-rd 
them  as  mischievous — begot  of  revenge,  ntisdirected  philan 
thropy  and  lust  of  power.  *  *  *  Such  a  government  cannot  long 
have  the  heartfelt  sympathy  of  any  large  body  of  white  men 
anywhere.  Blood  is  thicker  than  water,  and  Northern .  whites 
will  sympathize  with  Southern  whites  in  their  struggle  to  shake 
off  the  incubus  of  Negro  rule.  If  there  were  no  prejudice  of 
race  to  affect  their  action,  the  Northern  people  would  still 
refuse  to  reproduce  in  the  States  of  the  Union,  Hayti  or  San 
Domingo,  *  or  any  other  government  and  civilization  the  Negro 
race  has  established  since  the  flood.  " 

*  The  allusion  to  the  story  of  San  Domingo  is  such  a  worn  commonplace  in  recent 
American  speeches  that  the  public  appears,  kom  the  very  triteness  of  the  reference,  to 
have  lost  distinct  recollections  of  the  event.  Few  know  this  terrible  history,  so  com 
monly  referred  to.  A  glance  at  it  in  the  pages  ol  a  single  writer  (Bryant  Edwards)  is 
not  out  of  place  here. 

"  To  detail,"  says  the  author,  "the  various  conflicts,  skirmishes,  massacres,  and  scenes 
of  slaughter  which  this  exterminating  war  produced,  were  to  offer  a  disgusting  and 
frightiul  picture — a  combination  of  horrours  wherein  we  should  behold  cruelties  unex 
ampled  in  the  annals  of  mankind ;  human  blood  poured  forth  in  torrents ;  the  earth 
blackened  with  ashes,  and  the  air  tainted  with  pestilence.  It  was  computed  that  within 
two  months  after  the  revolt  first  began,  upward  of  two  thousand  white  persons,  of  all 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.          1G7 

Meantime,  while  the  affection  of  race  has  not  yet  been  fully 
summoned  in  the  contest,  the  great  point  of  advantage  with  the 
South  is  that  the  Radical  party  has  necessarily  identified  its 
scheme  of  Negro  supremacy  with  revolutionary  designs  upon  the 
Constitution,  and  that  the  contest  is  thus  broadly  translated 
into  a  war  of  liberty.  To  enforce  its  scheme  of  Reconstruction, 
Congress  has  found  it  necessary  to  break  through  the  restraints 
of  the  Constitution ;  to  bind  and  gag  .the  South  with  military 
rule ;  to  besot  the  conscience  of  the  Government ;  to  buy  the  souls 
of  men  ;  to  drug  Grant ;  to  close  its  doors  alike  to  the  inter 
ference  of  Executive  authority  or  that  of  public  opinion ; 
to  erect  itself  into  a  revolutionary  body.  The  issue  is  thus 
widened,  and  the  question  of  the  Negro  acquires  all  the  signi 
ficance  of  a  second  rebellion ; — for,  as  President  Johnson  says : 
"  To  attack  and  attempt  the  disruption  of  the  Government  by 
armed  combinations  and  military  force  is  no  more  dangerous  to 

conditions  and  ages,  had  been  massacred ;  that  one  hundred  and  eighty  sugar  plantations 
and  about  nine  hundred  coffee,  cotton  and  indigo  settlements  had  been  destroyed  (the 
buildings  thereon  being  consumed  by  fire),  and  one  thousand  two  hundred  Christian 
families  reduced  from  opulence  to  such  a  state  of  misery  as  to  depend  altogether  for 
•  their  clothing  and  sustenance  on  public  and  private  charity  !  Of  the  insurgents  it  was 
reckoned  that  upwards  of  ten  thousand  had  perished  by  the  sword  or  by  famine,  and 
Borne  hundreds  by  the  hands  of  the  executioner  !  " 

On  one  occasion,  we  are  told,  the  standard  of  the  insurgents  was  "  the  body  of  a  white 
infant  which  they  had  recently  impaled  on  a  stake.*  *  "A  poor  man,  named  Robert,  a 
carpenter  by  trade,  endeavouring  to  conceal  himself  from  the  notice  of  the  rebels,  was 
discovered  in  his  hiding-place.  The  savages  declared  he  should  die  in  the  way  of  his 
occupation.  Accordingly  they  bound  him  between  two  boards,  and  deliberately  sawed 
him  asunder !  *  *  * 

"All  the  white  and  even  the  mulatto  children  whose  fathers  had  not  joined  in  the 
revolt  were  murdered  without  exception,  frequently  before  the  eyes  or  clinging  to  tho 
bosoms  of  their  mothers."  *  *  * 

"  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Jeremie  a  body  of  mulattoes  attacked  the  house  of  Mons. 
Lejourne  and  secured  the  persons  both  of  him  and  his  wife.  This  unfortunate  woman — 
my  hand  trembles  while  I  write — was  far  advanced  in  pregnancy.  The  monsters,  whoso 
prisoner  she  was,  having  first  murdered  her  husband  in  her  presence,  ripped  her  up  alive 
and  threw  the  infant  to  the  hogs.  They  then  (how  shall  I  relate  it  ?)  sewed  up  the  head 

of  the  murdered  husband  in /  .'  Such  are  thy  triumphs,  philanthropy !  And  such 

an  act  was  committed  by  mulattoes,  some  of  whom  had  received  an  education  iu  France  I 
What  may  have  been  the  deeds  of  the  untaught  Negroes  1 " 


168          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

the  life  of  the  nation  than  an  attempt  to  revolutionize  and  un 
dermine  it  by  a  disregard  and  destruction  of  the  safeguards, 
thrown  around  the  liberties  of  the  people  in  the  Constitution.  " 

This  is  the  true  breadth  of  the  question — and  the  South 
will  do  well  to  seize  and  hold  it,  for  here  on  this  ground  will 
be  the  dominant  line  and  crest  of  the  battle,  here  the  point  of 
victory.  It  is  the  august  cause  of  the  Constitution ;  and  it  is 
the  good  fortune  of  the  South  to  represent  in  this  high  and  im 
portant  contest  not  only  the  conservative,  but  the  traditional 
party  of  the  country.  It  is  the  party  which  stands  on  the  de 
fensive,  making  its  stronghold  in  the  ancient  fabrics  of  the 
Government,  uplifting  the  banner  of  the  Constitution,  appeal 
ing  to  all  there  is  of  veneration  for  the  past,  reviving  the  les 
sons  of  ancestral  wisdom — those  of  Jefferson  and  Madison — 
and  putting  these  grand  and  powerful  appeals  against  a  faction, 
whose  whole  purpose  is  to  interpret  the  past  war  as  a  political 
revolution,  and  to  make  it  the  era  of  departure  from  the  tried 
and  established  standards  of  the  past. 

We  come  to  ask :  what  is  the  true,  historical  significance  of 
the  past  war  ?  And  in  the  light  of  this  question,  we  perceive 
but  two  great  parties:  one  contending  that  the  war  decided 
only  the  certain  special  questions  for  which  it  was  invoked, 
and  that  the  country  is  re-committed  to  the  Constitution  as 
formerly,  and  must  be  recalled  to  the  condition  and  law  of  the 
past ;  the  other  violently  construing  the  war  as  a  pervading 
revolution  in  the  body  politic,  trying  to  establish  upon  it  a 
vital  change  of  polity,  and  prone  to  all  the  new  and  rash  ex 
periments  of  reformers.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  which 
of  these  two  parties  is  logically  the  stronger,  and  more  likely 
to  triumph  in  the  end.  The  power  of  the  first  is  its  appeal  to 
the  past,  the  engagement  of  all  the  emotions  summed  in  the 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.  169 

word  "  patriotism.  "     The  true  hope   of  the  South,  the  excel 
lent  fortune  of  the  South  is,  that  in  her  peculiar  contest  for  the 
recovery  of  her  liberties,  and  her  protection  against  the  revenge 
ful  and  revolutionary  design  that  would  dedicate  her  to  the 
Negro,  she  not  only  appeals  to  the  instincts   of  race,  but  she 
embraces  the  great   monuments    of  law   and   tradition  in  the 
country,  clinging  to  them — these  sacred  altars  of  safety — under 
the  banner  of  the  Constitution,  and  beneath  the  pointed  shields 
of  the  fathers  of  the  republic.     Under  this  banner  she  is  hap 
pily  ranged  in  the  contest;  here  is  her    strength,  and  hope, 
and  animation,  and  assurance  of  victory ;  in  hoc  signo  vinnes. 
The  political  contest  at  Washington  is  at  last  resolved  into 
a  re-assertion  of  the  Constitution,  on  one  side,  and  an  open  and 
revolutionary  defiance  on  the  other,  an  experiment  of  disorder 
and  rebellion.     It  is  in  this  sense  that  President  Johnson  has 
acted,  rather  than  in  any  lower  sense  of  fealty  to  the  Democra 
tic  party,  or  peculiar  affection  for  the  South.     We  must  acquit 
him  of  both  these  charges,  when  we  find  him  in  every  conjunc 
ture,  and  at  every  point  of  contact  with  Congress,  proclaiming 
the  virtue  of  the  Constitution,  and  disdaining  every  lower  argu 
ment  or  appeal.     The  sum  of  his  administration  so  far  is :  an 
anxious  desire  to  restore    the   country  to    the  condition   of  the 
Constitution,  to  terminate  the  war  at  the  boundary  of  the  Con 
stitution  ;  hence  his  policy  for  an  early  restoration  of  the  Union, 
with  a  provisional  government  the  only  stepping-stone  to  it — 
hence  his  opposition  to  all  extra-constitutional  terms  imposed 
upon  the  South,  to  Negro  suffrage,  to  probationary  periods  of 
military  law,  to  all  artifices  of  delay — hence  his  vetoes  of  the 
legislation  of  Congress  to  make  an  impossible  problem  of  Re 
construction,  and  to  involve  with  it  an  even  greater  element  of 
discord  than  that  which  the  late  war  extinguished.    This  is  the 

8 


170  THE  TRUE    HOPE  OF  THE    SOUTH 

extent  of  his  offence  to  Congress — this  the  extent  of  those  high 
titles  of  fame  he  will  hold  in  history,  when  the  judgments  of 
mere  party  are  humbled  and  forgotten. 

Eut  it  is  said  the  President  has  no  jurisdiction,  no  constitu 
tional  care  of  the  subject  of  Reconstruction;  that  his  recom 
mendations  of  policy  thereon  have  been  in  derogation  of  the 
rights  and  conscience  of  Congress.  Now,  whatever  may  be 
said  in  a  technical  point  of  view,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  President  as  the  constitutional  head  of  the  nation  has  the 
right  to  advise  and  recommend  on  all  subjects;  that  in  our 
political  system  he  is  the  source  of  all  enlightenment  and  advice.* 

*  We  notice  that  General  Grant,  in  accepting  the  Radical  nomination  for  President, 
assumes  a  certain  virtue  in  promising  that,  in  case  of  his  election,  he  will  have  no  policy 
of  his  own,  but  will  obey  "the  will  of  the  people"  etc.  It  is  perhaps  the  least  happy  of 
the  political  brevities  of  a  man  not  much  given  to  words.  As  President  of  the  United 
States  he  can  only  know  "the  will  of  the  people"  through  Congress,  and  in  obeying  that 
body  he  becomes  the  servile  representative  of  the  dominant  faction  of  Radicalism,  taking 
all  of  his  policy  from  the  propaganda  of  such  men  as  Stevens,  Butler,  Bingham,  etc. 
But  if  he  did  not  mean  this,  if  he  meant  nothing  practical,  and  only  designed  a  demagog. 
ical  phrase,  then  the  platitude  is  puerile  and  shallow  enough  to  be  characteristic  of  a 
mind  quite  as  much  at  loss  for  ideas  as  for  words.  "The  will  of  the  people"  is  the 
catch-phrase  of  a  poor  intellect,  and  Grant  has,  no  doubt,  had  recourse  to  the  political 
copy-book  for  an  easy  moral  sentence. 

Practically,  the  words  cannot  be  taken  as  less  than  a  servile  subscription  to  the  Radical. 
majority  in  Congress.  But  even  independent  of  party  sense,  they  contain  a  theory  of  the 
President's  office,  so  mean,  that  we  fervently  hope  the  utterer  will  never  be  permitted  to 
disgrace  it.  General  Grant  is  mistaken  in  supposing  that  the  office  of  the  President  of 
the  United  States  is  mechanically  to  execute  the  laws,  and  that  it  is  a  virtue  to  have  no 
policy  of  his  own.  Here  he  has  fallen  into  the  errour  of  a  low  mind,  and  has  shown  an 
utter  want  of  appreciation  of  the  dignity  of  the  Presidential  office.  If  his  theory  were 
correct,  then  any  stick  might  answer  for  President ;  and  it  would  be  impossible  to  explain 
how  an  officer,  who  can-originate  nothing,  wrho  is  incapable  of  any  "policy''  of  his  own, 
who  was  simply  to  register  the  edicts  and  perform  the  bidding  of  other  branches  of  the 
Government,  could  yet  be  esteemed  the  first  in  honour  and  dignity,  and  stand  at  the 
head  of  the  nation. 

The  infelicitous  speech  of  Grant  gives  occasion  for  a  commentary  on  the  true  nature 
of  the  Presidential  office,  confused  as  it  has  been  by  recent  events.  The  President  of 
tlie  United  States  is  vastly  more  than  an  executor  of  the  laws,  and  it  is  both  legitimate 
and  proper  for  him  to  have  a  "policy"  on  all  public  questions.  In  our  political  system 
the  President  is  the  fountain  of  advice,  the  source  of  all  political  enlightenment ;  in  his 
recommendations  to  Congress  he  is  capable  of  advising  and  instructing  on  all  subjects  • 
he  is  looked  to  by  the  nation  for  universal  moral  counsel.  This  is  the  true  and  lofty  in 
terpretation  of  the  President's  office  ;  and  to  say  that  he  shall  have  no  "  policy  "  on  cer- 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.          171 

By  the  way,  an  anxious  correspondent  in  New  Jersey  has  re 
cently  put  this  neat  and  novel  question  to  Mr.  Greeley  of  the  New 
York  Tribune:  If  Congress  has  excluded  the  representation 
of  the  South  in  its  body,  how  is  it  that  it  assumes  to  legislate 
for  it  on  the  subject  of  Reconstruction — representation  being 
the  only  and  sole  source  and  condition  of  Congressional  authori 
ty;  or  in  the  very  words  of  the  correspondent:  "If  the 
President  be  President  of  the  whole  country,  the  Supreme 
Court  the  Supreme  Court  for  the  whole  country,  and  Congress, 
Congress  only  for  the  States  represented,  is  it  not  evident  that 
the  whole  business  of  -Reconstruction  is  entirely  out  of  the 

tain  subjects,  because  Congress  alone  has  the  right  to  legislate  upon  them,  is  to  belittle 
his  great  office  into  a  servile  acquiescence,  and  to  make  it  a  matter  of  no  account  who 
may  dwell  in  the  White  House.  We  are  aware  that  it  has  become  recently  fashionable 
thus  to  speak  of  the  President  as  a  cypher  ;  it  is  part,  indeed,  of  an  attempt  to  erect  Con 
gress  into  a  despotic  tribunal ;  and  it  has  become  critically  important  that  we  should  re-ad 
just  our  notions  oi  the  President's  true  position  in  the  Government  and  restore  it  to  its 
traditional  importance.  The  most  eager  contests  in  our  political  history  have  been  as  to 
who  shall  be  President;  the  nation  has  looked  on  him  as  its  head,  and  the  world  has  de 
rived  opinions  of  particular  periods  of  our  history  from  the  character  and  conduct  of  the 
men  who  have  for  the  time  filled  what  was  considered  the  first  office  in  the  gift  of  their 
countrymen.  The  President  is  thus  something  more  than  an  "Executive  Chair,  "  a 
mechanical  contrivance  to  carry  out  the  laws ;  he  is  the  prime  political  counselor  of  the 
nation,  dispensing  his  advice  periodically  through  the  country ;  and  to  be-  without  a 
"policy"  in  these  circumstances  would  be  simply  to  ignore  his  office  and  to  neglect 
his  duties. 

We  want  a  President  with  a  policy — an  abundant  policy — penetrating  every  concern 
oi  the  country,  embracing  all  its  cares,  ready  to  be  questioned  and  challenged  by  every 
interest  in  the  Irnd.  This  is  our  idea  of  a  President :  a  man  ready  to  advise  the  country 
in  all  respects,  giving  tone  to  its  mind  on  all  subjects,  in  sympathy  with  all  its  forms  of 
intelligence  ;  not  a  creature  of  two  words,  skulking  behind  non-committals,  insisting  that 
he  has  "no  policy,"  which  means  in  fact  that  he  has  no  ideas.  Save  us  from  this  inane 
creature,  shuffling  his  platitudes  and  catch- words  about  "the  will  of  the  people,"  and 
insisting  that  there  are  no  other  elements  to  be  considered  than  the  pleasure  ol  Congress, 
or  the  breath  oi  the  multitude.  The  science  of  government  is  a  large  and  intricate  one  : 
there  are  other  things  beside  "the  will  of  the  people" — laws,  institutions,  precedents, 
traditions,  intelligence.  We  might  pardon  General  Grant's  "no-policy"  speech  as  a 
piece  of  wretched  tyroism  in  politics,  the  fault  of  ignorance,  but  for  the  meanness  ol  the 
sentiment,  his  willingness  to  degrade  an  office  honoured  by  the  most  illustrious  memories 
in  America  to  the  position  of  an  instrument  ot  the  Radical  party  in  Congress.  II  he 
hopes  to  purchase  the  office  by  advertising  his  willingness  to  degrade  it,  he  has  miscalcu 
lated  the  sentiment  of  the  people,  and  the  respect  they  have  always  insisted  on  bestowing 
upon  the  first  office  in  their  gift 


172          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

province  of  Congress,  and  belongs  exclusively  to  the  President 
and  the  Supreme  Court?"  This  New  Jersey  correspondent  is 
evidently  anxious,  and  a  sincere  inquirer  after  the  truth.  He 
implores  Mr.  Grreeley  not  to  "beat  around  the  bush,"  but  to 
"  answer  squarely  and  honestly,"  as  then  he  will  "hit  the 
right  nail  fairly  on  the  head  for  thousands." 

The  New  Jersey  correspondent  has  made  a  neat  and  un 
answerable  argument.  Mr.  Grreeley  is  unable  to  reply  to  it-, 
so  he  tries  the  reductio  ad  absurdum,  and  declares  the  doctrine 
of  his  correspondent  a  short  cut  to  Secession  and  Revolution. 
Suppose,  .he  says,  the  little  State  of  Delaware  was  to  refuse  to 
send  representatives  to  Congress,  then  by  the  correspondent's 
logic,  she  might-  nullify  the  acts  of  Congress,  defy  the  revenue 
laws,  land  free  goods  to  be  distributed  far  and  wide,  and  bank 
rupt  the  Government,  while  disintegrating  and  collapsing  the 
Union.  This  is  the  reply  of  Mr.  Grreeley.  But  it  contains  a 
fallacy  as  plain  as  a  pike-staff — letting  alone  the  figure  of  the 
correspondent  about  the  nail  and  hammer.  In  the  case  sup 
posed  by  Mr.  Grreeley,  Delaware  would  be  unrepresented  by 
her  own  wrong ;  to  be  sure,  she  must  take  the  consequences  ot 
her  own  wicked  election.  But  the  ten  Southern  States  arc 
unrepresented,  not  by  their  own  wrong ;  they  have  sent  repre 
sentatives  to  Congress;  they  have  besieged  its  halls  by  all  sorts 
of  application  and  argument  for  their  admission  ;  and  when 
Congress,  by  its  own  act,  and  deliberately,  excludes  them,  and 
denies  representation  to  these  States,  it  debars  the  right  to 
legislate  for  them,  it  cuts  off  "the  sole  source  and  condition  of 
Congressional  authority."  Mr.  Greeley  cannot  answer  the 
question  of  his  correspondent;  it  is  novel,  incisive,  and  goes  to 
the  very  heart  of  the  controversy. 

A  few  words  are  appropriate  here  of  the  spirit  which  Presi- 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.          173 

dent  Johnson  has  displayed  in  his  collisions  with  Congress ;  for 
we  are  persuaded  it  is  precisely  this  spirit  that  should  be  com 
municated  to  the  South — that  contains  whatever  there  is  of 
hope  for  her,  and  points  the  path  to  victory. 

He  has  been  patient,  self-continent,  profuse  in  sacrifice,  and 
firm  and  sovereign  in  his  trust  of  the  ultimate  result.  There 
is  one  trait  in  the  character  of  Mr.  Johnson  which  has  never 
failed  of  the  admiration  of  the  Southern  people,  in  any  shape 
or  style  of  man,  and  which,  even  in  the  heats  and  resentments 
of  the  late  war,  obtained  respect  for  him  from  the  most  violent 
Secessionists.  It  is  his  high,  personal  courage.  No  politician 
in  the  country  has  a  more  abundant  record  of  this  virtue. 
The  man  who  on  the  threshold  of  the  war  could  face  the  com 
bination  formed  against  him  in  the  Senate  by  the  most  violent 
representatives  of  the  South  there,  making  him  their  especial 
target,  converging  their  weapons  upon  him  and  say  in  front  of 
the  audacious  array:  "  these  two  eyes  never  looked  upon  any 
being  in  the  shape  of  mortal  man  that  this  heart  of  mine 
feared;"  the  man  who,  in  1861,  confronted  a  mob  at  a  rail 
road  station  in  Virginia  and,  by  a  gleam  of  high  courage  in 
his  face,  overawed  and  disarmed  them ;  the  man  who,  when  the 
Confederate  armies  overran  Tennessee,  and  the  Federal  Gen 
eral  Buell  was  thought  to  exhibit  signs  of  despair,  could 
declare  in  the  capital  of  that  State :  "  any  one  who  talks  of  sur 
rendering  I  will  shoot ;  "  the  man  who  has  firmly  and  conscien 
tiously  exercised  the  high  office  of  President  against  the 
clamours  and  threats  of  a  faction,  sworn  to  take  his  official  life, 
murder  him  politically  and  cast  his  flesh  to  the  black  images  of 
their  idolatry,  must,  indeed,  have  a  firm  and  mettlesome  spirit 
— possesses,  indeed,  that  bravery  of  soul  which  is  at  once  the 
auxiliary  and  ornament  of  the  highest  virtues. 


174          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH. 

Let  this,  too,  be  observed  to  his  honour.  The  course  of  his 
administration  has  been  to  abdicate  power  and  patronage ;  to 
chastise  personal  ambition ;  to  overcome  temptations,  greater 
than  ever  assailed  any  predecessor  in  his  office.  Had  he  chosen 
the  part  of  a  Cromwell  or  a  Napoleon,  a  servile  legislative  assem 
bly  would  have  been  at  hand  to  prompt  and  sustain  him  in  the 
character  of  usurper  and  to  constitute  him  the  greatest  mili 
tary  despot  of  modern  times.  Had  he  acquiesced  in  the 
scheme  of  Reconstruction  prepared  by  Congress,  he  would 
have  secured  its  bad  alliance,  and,  through  his  office  as  com 
mander  in-chief,  have  found  himself  absolute  master  of  the 
lives  and  fortunes  of  ten  millions  of  people  residing  in  the  mili 
tary  districts  of  the  South.  It  was  the  spectacle  of  a  legis 
lative  assembly,  in  order  to  gratify  its  political  passions, 
not  only  offering  the  executive  chief  despotic  powers,  but 
prompting  him  to  their  assumption  and  eager  for  his  accept, 
ance.  Congress  laid  at  his  feet  the  absolute  empire  of  nearly 
one  half  of  the  country,  a  patronage  the  most  enormous  in 
history  ;  and  had  he  accepted  them,  he  might  well  have  defied 
the  feeble  discontent  of  the  South,  while  Congress  would  have 
been  complaisant  and  he  would  have  blazed  in  the  encomiums 
of  the  most  numerous  party  in  the  North.  What  then  con 
strained  this  man,  thus  tempted — the  temptation  safe,  the 
temptation  even  calculated  on  a  balance  of  popularity  for  the 
acceptance — to  deny  and  spurn  it,  to  mortify  his  ambition,  to  re 
ject  the  counsels  of  the  most  numerous,  to  sacrifice  power  and 
popularity  together — what  but  the  high,  severe  overruling 
sense  of  duty,  which  absolves  from  his  selfishness,  and  makes 
him  the  sublime  minister  of  the  eternal  laws  of  truth  and 
justice. 

The  opposition  of  President  Johnson  to   Congress  never  re- 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.          175 

coiled  at  the  threat  of  Impeachment.  Thus,  although  it  had  been 
possible  for  him  to  have  been  the  idol  of  Congress,  and  to  have 
soared  on  its  adulation,  the  country  has  lately  seen  him  stand 
ing  in  uncertainty  and  'submission,  an  accused  man  at  its  bar ! 
The  sublime  choice  is  all  his  own.  We  believe  his  brave  heart 
in  that  noble  utterance  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
when  the  motion  to  impeach  him  was  suspended  over  his  head, 
and  the  sword  had  not  yet  descended:  "If  I  had  been  fully  ad 
vised  when  I  removed  Mr.  Stanton,  that  in  thus  defend 
ing  the  trust  committed  to  my  care  my  own  removal  was  sure 
to  follow,  /  would  not  ham  hesitated.  " 

Looking  back  upon  the  administration  of  Mr.  Johnson, 
we  are  struck  with  its  evidences  of  self-negation.  Yet, 
these  denials  are  the  price  of  true  greatness,  at  once  the 
discipline  and  the  policy  of  the  loftiest  ambition.  He 
has  chosen  the  narrow  path — that  path  which  though 
beset  with  difficulties  and  hunted  and  hounded  by  persecutions, 
and  planted  with  thorns,  and  lost  in  many  parts  to  the  world's 
observation,  ascends  at  last  from  the  black  and  poisonous 
shades  and  passes  through  fields  of  glory  to  the  illuminated 
portals  of  History.  Let  the  South  emulate  his  course,  his 
self-sacrificing  policy,  his  brave  patience,  his  enduring  resolu 
tion.  There  is  nothing  like  a  single,  high,  personal  example  to 
animate  and  instruct  a  distressed  and  bewildered  people  ;  and 
fortunately  the  South  has  it  in  Andrew  Johnson.  There  is  no 
better,  briefer  lesson  for  the  people  of  the  South  than  that  every 
man  of  them  should  practice  this  high  example.  Once  this  man, 
in  a  crisis,  not  greater  than  that  of  to-day,  standing  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  before  a  close  array  of  hostile 
faces  said :  "I  have  taken  my  position;  and  when  the  tug 
comes,  when  Greek  shall  meet  Greek,  and  our  rights  are 


176         THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH. 

refused,  after  all  honourable  means  shall  have  been  exhausted, 
then  it  is  that  I  will  perish  in  the  last  breach ;  yes,  in  the 
language  -of  the  patriot  Emmet,  '  I  will  dispute  every  inch  of 
ground  j  I  will  burn  every  blade  of  grass ;  and  the  last 
intrenchment  of  Freedom  shall  be  my  grave ! '  ' 

These  are  thrilling,  memorable  words.  They  suit  the  pres 
ent  contest  of  liberty ;  they  are  fit  for  the  inspiration  of  the 
South.  Let  us  repeat  them  and  breathe  our  souls  into  them, 
and  put  them  as  fire  into  our  hearts.  No  cause  is  ever  lost 
for  the  true  and  noble ;  the  soul  of  the  brave  man  defies  the 
accidents  of  fortune,  and  finds  an  ultimate  inspiration  in  itself, 
though  fate  wreaks  its  worst  upon  his  life,  and  tortures,  and 
blackens  it,  and  tears  the  very  flesh  from  the  immortal  spirit. 
What  man  of  the  South  will  not  repeat  the  words  of 
Richelieu: 

(Richelieu) — "  Old — childless — friendless — broken ; — all  forsake — 

All— all— but " 

(Joseph)— "What?" 
(Richelieu) — "  The  indomitable  heart 

Oi  Armand  Richelieu  !  " 

Let  us  never  despair.  Hope  is  beautiful ;  it  is  grand ;  it  is 
the  property  of  noble  souls,  "the  possession  forever"  of  the 
destitute  and  desolate.  Only  the  weak  and  mean  surrender  to 
despair.  Come  trouble  in  the  life  of  the  brave  man — come 
falsehood  and  injustice  and  loss  and  scandal ;  come  the  finger 
OAC  scorn  and  the  arrow  of  misfortune ;  come  all  the  multitude 
and  baneful  train  of  sorrows,  and  yet,  yet  he  will  hope.  It  is 
God's  own  law,  which  only  the  weakness  and  crime  of 
humanity  pervert.  There  are  times  when  the  heavens  grow 
dark,  and  when  wild,  bitter  winds  wail  in  the  great  hollowness 
around  us,  and  the  heart  of  man  sinks  in  contemplation  of  the 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.         177 

scene ;  but  to  the  patient  the  cloud  will  break  at  last,  the 
glorious  sun  will  ride  into  the  golden  gate,  and  the  chambers 
of  peace  and  beauty  will  again  be  hung  up  in  the  sky. 


IMPEACHMENT. 

The  true  revolutionary  sense  of  the  proceeding  against  the  President — Its  relations  to 
Reconstruction — Errour  of  the  Radical  party — Growth  of  public  interest  in  Impeach 
ment — Anticipations  of  "the  future  historian" — Value  of  Impeachment  as  a  moral 
exhibition. 

We  have  already  referred  to  the  late  Impeachment  of  the 
President  as  logically  part  of  the  Reconstruction  scheme,  the 
culmination  of  the  effort  to  nullify  the  restraints  of  the  Execu 
tive  authority  upon  the  will  of  Congress  which  designed  to  gov 
ern  alone  in  the  South,  and  to  complete  there  an  unqualified 
despotism.  It  is  well  known  that  the  immediate  question  of 
Mr.  Johnson's  attempt  to  remove  Secretary  Stanton  from  the 
War  Office  was  but  the  slight  occasion  of  his  arraignment,  and 
that  the  real  difficulty  in  the  mind  of  the  Radical  party  was, 
that  the  President  was  an  impediment  to  their  reckless  and 
revolutionary  policy. 

It  was  fortunate,  however,  for  the  country  that  Impeachment 
was  lodged  on  this  particular  issue  and  that  personal  resent 
ments  of  the  Radical  party  clouded  their  usual  prudent 
judgment.  In  no  part  of  the  general  scheme  of  the  Radicals 
could  an  issue  have  .been  made  with  more  disadvantage  to 
them,  or  one  better  exhibiting  the  President  to  public  sym 
pathy,  besides  putting  him  on  his  strongest  grounds.  It  was 
so  complicated  by  additions  of  personal  insult  and  outrage  to 

8* 


178          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

the  President ;  it  contained  so  many  elements,  was  such  a 
combination  of  injustice,  that  we  may  congratulate  the  country 
that  the  Radical  party,  in  its  passion,  fell  into  the  errour  of 
making  a  decisive  question  where  the  aggravation  of  circum 
stances  was  all  against  themselves,  and  where,  so  to  speak, 
prejudices  to  their  disfavour  necessarily  accumulated  on  the 
side  issues.  The  question  was  thus  multiplied  in  a  remarkable 
sentence  of  a  speech  of  Mr.  Eldridge,  Democrat  from  Wis 
consin:  "  How  is  it  possible  for  this  Government  of  several 
co-equal  departments  to  exist,  when  they  are  not  only  warring 
with  each  other,  but  when  one  keeps  a  spy,  a  common  informer 
in  the  confidential  councils  of  the  other,  and  more  than  that  a 
known  and  determined  enemy,  holding  his  position  against  his 
own  professed  convictions  of  constitutional  right  and  duty  !  "  * 

•No  better  argument  could  hare  been  devised  for  the  President  in  the  case  of  Im 
peachment — no  more  admirable  vindication  of  his  right  to  control  the  inferiour  executive 
offices  of  his  Administration  than  that  contained  in  the  speech  of  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens, 
before  he  had  grown  gray  in  the  services  of  political  iniquity.  The  extract  is  from  a 
speech  of  this  man,  in  1837,  on  the  question  of  amending  the  State  Constitution  of 
Pennsylvania,  so  as  to  deprive  the  Governor  of  powers  similar  to  those  lately  wrested 
from  the  President  of  the  United  States.  If  Mr.  Stevens  had  only  repeated  the  same 
sentiments  at  The  bar  of  the  United  States  Senate,  mutatis  mutandis,  he  would  have 
gone  to  the  extreme  lengths  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  have  even  outbid  the  argu 
ments  of  the  President's  counsel.  Such  is  the  inconsistency  of  public  men  in  our 
unhappy  country,  wno  sacrifice  all  the  truth  and  principle  of  earlier  days  to  schemes  of 
personal  ambition  and  afterthoughts  of  party  ! 

"Plaving  reluctantly  but  inevitably  come  to  the  mournful  conclusion,  that  all  the  vital 
parts  of  this  venerable  and  hitherto  venerated  Constitution  of  ours  are  given  over  to 
immolation,  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  restless  spirit  of  change  which  has  taken  possession  of 
this  Convention,  I  do  not  address  you  on  this  occasion  with  the  hope  of  staying  the  hand 
of  destruction  which  is  raised  against  it ;  but  simply  to  offer  reasons  which,  to  my  mind, 
^re  all-powerful  for  resisting  the  depredations  which  are  making  upon  this  article  of  the 
great  charter  of  our  rights.  *  x  "Why  take  the  appointment  of  the  Heads  of  Depart 
ments.  Surveyor  General,  Attorney  General,  Secretary  of  the  Land  Office,  and  Auditor 
General,  from  the  Governor?  They  are  essentially  a  part  of  his  Cabinet.  His  own 
comfort,  and  the  comfort  of  each  of  them,  as  well  as  the  public  interest,  require  that 
there  should  be  perfect  harmony  and  unity  of  views  and  action  among  them. 

"But  if  you  take  the  appoints ( nts  from  the  Governor,  it  may,  and  probably  often  will 
happen,  that  he  will  be  of  one  party,  and  entertain  one  set  of  principles,  and  they  be  of 
another  party,  and  hold  entirely  opposite  principles ;  discord  and  opposition  must  then 
disturb  their  counsels,  and  injure  the  interests  of  the  State.  *  *  *  The  Governor  and 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH.          179 

Here  was  a  whole  bundle  of  questions ;  and  each  multiple  of 
the  proposition  was  in  favour  of  the  President  and  the  country, 
as  against  Congress.  The.  latter,  indeed,  could  not  have  tried 
a  weaker  link  in  the  lengthened  chain  of  "Reconstruction." 
It  could  not  have  made  up  a  case  more  against  itself;  nor 
could  the  country  have  had  a  more  favourable  trial  of  its 
liberties,  nor  the  South  a  better  test  of  its  hopes  than  in  this 
proceeding  against  the  President,  in  which  the  Radical  party 
clearly  admitted  personal  malice  at  the  cost  of  political 
prudence.  The  country  had  a  large,  visible  stake  in  the  trial; 
the  South  had  peculiar  interests  and  hopes  bound  up  in  it ; 
while  what  might  have  been  the  immediate  personal  conse 
quences  to  the  President  was  of  comparatively  little  concern, 
even  to  himself,  since  we  were  well  assured  that  he  was  equally 
able  to  endure  martyrdom  sublimely,  as  to  bear  victory  grace 
fully,  in  behalf  of  patriotism,  and  in  vindication  of  truth. 


the  Senate  would  either  be  of  the  same  political  party  or  hostile  parties.  If  of  the  same 
party,  the  Senate  would  be  no  check  upon  the  Governor,  as  there  would  be  perfect  con 
cert  before  the  nomination,  and  therefore  this  supervising  power  would  be  useless.  If 
they  were  of  hostile  parties,  constant  and  bitter  collisions  would  exist  between  them, 
which  would  greatly  disturb  the  faithful  discharge  of  their  other  duties.  *  *  *  This 
work  of  ruin  seems  not  to  be  exclusively  confined  to  one  party.  True,  all  the  members 
of  the  one  party,  whatever  might  have  been  their  views  when  they  came  here,  now  act 
In  perfect  concert  in  stabbing  the  Constitution. 

".They  cunningly  enough  suppose,  that  if  this  amendment  prevails,  they  can  always 
secure  the  spoils  ol  office,  either  through  the  Governor  or  the  Senate,  as  they  ma-y 
always  fairly  calculate  in  having  one  of  them  in  their  favour.  For,  when  the  burdens 
heaped  upon  the  people  by  that  party  become  so  heavy  that  they  can  no  longer  be  borne, 
and  their  Governor  is  hurled  from  power,  the  Senate  is  not  always  also  changed.  Thus 
patronage  being  their  object,  they  act  unitedly.  While  many  gentlemen  of  the  other 
party,  with  an  ostentatious  magnanimity  and  a  childish  simplicity,  either  from  the  mis 
taken  dictates  of  conscience,  or  to  show  their  perfect  independence  and  freedom  from 
party  trammels,  join  them  in  their  headlong  course.  The  struggle  here,  therefore,  is  a 
vain  one.  But  I  have  full  confidence  in  a  steady  and  disinterested  people;  disinterested 
as  to  the  fate  of  parties,  but  deeply  interested  in  the  welfare  of  the  State,  and  the  protec 
tion  of  the  lives,  the  liberty,  and  the  property  of  its  citizens.  Send  forth  to  them  this 
mangled,  mutilated,  and  dffformed  Constitution,  and  they  will  put  their  seal  of  condem 
nation  upon  it ;  and  they  will  still  live  and  prosper  under  the  well-tried  charter  which 
their  wise  and  holiest  fathers  left  them." 


180          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH, 

Happily,  these  proceedings  have  terminated  substantially  in 
favour  of  the  President,  and  the  Radical  party  reels  from  the 
bar  of  the  Senate  with  a  wound  reaching  to  its  vitals.  There 
is  dacger,  however,  that  the  country  may  value  this  success 
too  highly  ;  it  is  certainly  not  a  triumph  to  be  reposed  upon ; 
the  wound  to  Radicalism  is  serious  but  not  necessarily  mortal ; 
and  it  is  only  under  a  shower  of  blows  that  we  can  dispatch 
the  monster.  Something  has  been  -gained,  for  constitutional 
liberty  and  for  the  "  lost  cause;"  but  it  is  rather  new  auspices 
and  hopes  than  perfected  results. 

In  looking  back  upon  Impeachment  we  must  admit  that,  for 
some  time,  there  was  a  light  and  unbecoming  display  of  pullic 
attention,  with  regard  to  an  event  unparalleled  in  American 
annals,  that  was  one  of  the  most  serious  and  fearful  signs  of 
the  times.  The  lesson  of  history  is,  that  popular  impassrve- 
ness  is  that  condition  in  which  Despotism  easily  accomplishes 
its  purposes,  and  that  levity  is  the  frequent  mood,  the  shallow 
and  hideous  mask,  of  the  worst  and  crudest  revolutions.  The 
question  of  Impeachment  was  so  grossly  misrepresented  as  one 
of  mere  personal  consequences,  that  it  was  astonishing  how 
such  deception  could  be  practiced  even  for  the  shortest  tine* 
upon  the  boasted  intelligence  of  our  people.  The  true  impor 
tance  of  the  proceeding  was  revolutionary ;  it  was  the  question 
of  the  integrity  and  independence  of  the  Executive  Depart 
ment  of  the  Government;  the  question  whether  we  were  to 
have  a  President,  as  in  past  times,  or  a  cypher,  without  power 
even  to  regulate  his  political  household ;  the  question  whether 
Congress  was  at  once  to  ascend  to  the  eminence  of  Despotism, 
and  make  the  President  of  the  United  States  its  convenient 
creature,  under  the  constant  threat  of  impeachment, 

"  The  hangman's  whip,  to  keep  the  wretch  in 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 


HOPE    OF    THE    SOUTH.  181 


As  the  trial  of  the  President  progressed,  public  opinion 
seems  to  have  gradually  risen  to  the  level  of  its  importance; 
and  the  spectacular  curiosity  at  Washington  was  replaced  by 
a  serious  interest,  until  at  last  the  vote  was  taken  on  the  most 
important  article,  on  the  15th  of  May,  at  the  height  of  one  of 
the  most  memorable  excitements  in  the  history  of  our 
country. 

We  rejoice  that  the  ultimate  effect  of  Impeachment  has  been 
to  betray  the  revolutionary  design  of  Congress,  and  draw  it 
from  the  ambuscade  of  false  and  hollow  pretenses.  These, 
indeed,  have  been  fortunate  and  timely  revelations.  When 
the  country  saw  Congress  proceeding  to  the  last  extremity  to 
destroy  the  independence  of  the  Executive  office,  it  was  not 
likely  on  due  reflection  to  ascribe  so  important  a  movement  to 
any  particular  offenses  of  Mr.  Johnson,  especially  since  the 
Radical  party  constantly  endeavoured  to  sink  the  question  of 
his  guilt  or  innocence  in  the  proceedings;  it-  perceived  a 
permanent  design,  a  distinct  revolutionary  purpose  ;  and  it  at 
last  appeared  to  be  fully  awakened  to  meet  and  to  contest  it. 
The  Radical  party  logically  became  by  Impeachment  a  revo 
lutionary  party  ;  its  act,  in  this  particular,  connected  with  the 
whole  scheme  of  Reconstruction,  was  of  a  piece  with  military 
domination  and  Negro  suffrage  and  other  misgovernment  ;  and 
the  distinction  of  Impeachment,  in  the  despotic  series,  was 
only  that  the  outrage  was  conspicuous  and  aggravated. 

The  future  historian  who  will  write  on  the  subject  of  the 
Impeachment  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  will  bo 
impressed  by  the  novelty  of  the  event,  and  will  naturally  find 
occasion  in  this  cause,  ceUbre  to  measure  the  morals  of  political 
life  in  America.  He  will  notice  its  dramatic  accessories,  and 
produce  a  narrative  varying  between  history  and  biography. 


182          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH. 

He  will  be  struck   by  the    popular  impassiveness  in  which  the 
Impeachment    was    commenced ;  but  he  will   find  that  sue! 
impassiveness  ensued  from  ignorance   and  misrepresentation, 
and  will    discover  the   increase    of  public    interest   until    ii 
mounted  to  the  true  importance  of  the  event  and  apprehended 
its  revolutionary  significance.       He  will  be  surprised  at   the 
levity  and  insolence  with  which  the  President's  accusers  con 
ducted  these  grave  proceedings.     He  will  notice  the  twitting 
debate  in  Congress,  the  jocose  allusion,  the  amusement  of  the 
House  when  Butler  drew  the  picture   of  Johnson  returning  to 
Tennessee  at  railroad  speed,  or  when  the  bottled  imp  described 
the  lofty  argument,  in  which  the  President  made  his  last  appeal 
for  the  Constitution  as   "a  plea   of  not  guilty,  with   a   stump 
speech  in  the  belly."     But  what  will  most  excite  his  attention 
and    employ  his    reflection  will   be    the   exhibition   of  moral 
depravity  in  our  public  life,  which  attempted  to  make  a  purely 
political  speculation  of  the  highest  judicial  proceeding  known 
to  our  laws.     He  will  curiously  notice   in   all  the    abundant 
commentaries  of  the  press,  that  the  question  of  guilt  or   inno 
cence  was  invariably  subordinated  to  that  of  party  expediency; 
that  the  votes   of  Senators  were   calculated  with  reference   to 
the  discipline  of  a  party,  or    the    prospect    of  a   Presidential 
nomination,   or    some   concern   of  patronage ;    in    short,   with 
reference    to    anything   else    than  that  issue  of  guilty  or   not 
guilty,  which  has  generally  been  supposed  to  be   the   end   of  a 
judicial  investigation.    He  will  find  that  these  vile  calculations 
of  the  trial  were  made  every   day  in  the   newspapers  without 
exciting  reproof  or   alarming  the  conscience  of   any  one.       In 
this  single  circumstance  he  will  see  the   moral  degradation  to 
which    public    life    in   this    country  tends ;  and  his   pen  will 
naturally  pass  to  a  broad  commentary  on  the  corruption  of  our 


THE  TRUE  HOPE  OF  THE  SOUTH.         183 

politics  which,  commencing  in  the  war,  accumulated  in  the 
recess  of  Impeachment  and  threatened  to  stagnate  in  the 
chamber  of  the  United  States  Senate. 

Yet  at  the  end  there  will  be  something  to  record  of  trium 
phant  vindication  of  our  people  from  these  first  reflections,  of 
noble  satisfaction  in  the  disproof  of  those  vile  calculations  of 
votes  on  the  score  of  party  policy.  It  will  be  seen  that  those 
calculations  were,  at  least  to  some  extent,  disappointed ;  and 
indeed,  in  this  moral  display  in  our  public  life,  the  vote  acquit 
ting  the  President  obtains  an  interest  which  vies  with  that  of 
immediate  political  consequences.  By  this  vote,  a  victory  of 
law  was  proclaimed  ;  a  severe,  if  not  a  fatal  wound,  was  given 
to  a  party  that  had  heretofore  been  as  insolent  as  it  was  injuri 
ous  ;  an  exhibition  of  moral  integrity  was  made  in  one  of  the 
highest  places  in  the  land ;  and  an  event  took  place  that  for 
once  adorned  the  history  of  our  whole  peo'ple. 

But  a  story  of  disgrace  yet  lingers.  There  is  a  page  in 
history  that  cannot  be  expunged,  that  will  keep  in  infamous 
memory  all  the  vile  resorts  of  the  Radical  party,  their  appli 
ances  to  procure  conviction,  their  attempts  to  bring  to  bear 
upon  men  sitting  in  a  judicial  capacity  the  force  of  the 
organization,  discipline,  opinions  and  wishes .  of  a  political 
party.  We  give  the  mildest  historical  phrase  to  the  inter 
ference  of  the  Radical  party,  the  recollections  of  which  are  so 
recent.  It  will  rankle  in  the  memory  of  Impeachment.  All 
through  the  last  week  of  the  trial,  the  Radical  journals  teemed 
with  efforts  to  use  the  force  of  asserted  local  opinions  on  the 
approaching  judgment  of  the  Senate  ;  and  it  is  notorious  that 
a  deliberate  appeal,  signed  by  the  Radical  Executive  Commit 
tee,  went  from  Washington  to  procure  from  all  parts  of  the 
country  the  manifestoes  of  political  party  to  affect  the  High 
Court  in  its  brief  period  of  advisement. 


184          THE  TRUE  HOPE  OP  THE  SOUTH. 

We  have  a  peculiar  satisfaction  in  the  acquittal  of  the 
President,  when  we  contemplate  the  amount  of  influence 
summoned  from  every  extremity  to  procure  a  different  result. 
This  reflection  not  only  confirms  the  triumph  of  justice,  and 
gives  additional  pangs  to  the  defeat  of  theJEladicals,  but  it 
exhibits  an  amount  of  virtue,  of  moral  integrity  in  the  highest 
of  public  bodies  known  in  America,  that  must  be  pleasing  to 
our  national  pride,  and  conspicuously  honourable  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world.  It  is  in  this  exalted  interest  that  the  vote  in 
the  Senate  will  be  recorded  in  history.  It  is,  indeed,  an 
interest  which  no  party  can  appropriate,  which  belongs  to  the 
entire  community,  and  which  will  at  once  be  recognized  by  all 
persons  who  have  at  heart  the  fame  of  the  country,  and 
consider  the  moral  vindication  that  Impeachment  has  afforded 
even  superiour  to  its  justification  of  a  political  cause. 


V. 
DUTY  OF  THE  WHOLE  COUNTRY. 

THE    DEMOCRATIC    PARTY. 

Three  duties  of  the  country; — Summary  of  the  virtues  of  the  Democratic  party — Singular 
attempt  of  the  Republican  party,  in  1861,  to  appropriate  Democratic  principles- 
Its  return  to  Consolidation— Renewed  appeal  of  the  Democratic  party  to  "time- 
honoured  principles." 

There  are  three  points  to  be  considered  in  that  political  re 
generation  which  is  the  true  hope  of  the  South — three  great 
duties  of  the  country. 

1.  To  return  to  the  past,  over  the  tract  of  the  war,  to  re-as 
sert  the  authority  of  the  Constitution,  to  revive  the  political 
traditions  of  the  country,  to  consult  anew  the  fathers  of  the 
Republic,  and  draw  from  these  ancestral  lessons    instruction 
and  inspiration  meet  for  the  occasion. 

2.  To  let  the  Negro  severely  alone,  as  a  subject  of  political 
controversy,  and,  after  properly  providing  for  him  in  matters  of 
civil  rights,  and  doing  for  him  the  common  offices  of  humanity, 
to  leave  him  to  gravitate  to  the  condition  which  nature  and  ex 
perience  shall  assign  him. 


186  DUTY    OF    THE    WHOLE    COUNTRY. 

3.  To  organize  into  some  party  that  shall  override  all  section 
al  questions,  that  shall  be  coincident  with  the  Constitution, 
and  make  no  other  test  than  fidelity  to  this  instrument,  devel 
oping  the  patriotism  of  the  country  within  its  limits  and  under 
its  standards. 

If  any  other  party  fulfills  this  condition  better  than  the 
Democratic  party,  then  let  all  patriots  embrace  it,  whatever  its 
name,  and  devote  to  it  their  names  and  services  and  fortunes. 
Here  we  have  a  party,  brave  and  coherent ;  a  remarkable  party 
— remarkable,  because  it,  alone,  in  the  history  of  political 
opinions  in  this  country,  has  maintained  its  organization  since 
the  foundations  of  the  Government ;  because,  it  has  ruled  the 
country  in  long  seasons  of  prosperity,  and  obtained  the  tests  ol 
experience  and  the  inspirations  of  victory;  because,  it  has  ad 
ministered  the  Government  for  much  the  better  half  of  its 
existence;  because,  it  is  attended  by  the  most  glorious  recol 
lections  in  American  history,  and  by  the  eclat  of  immortal 
„  names ;  because,  in  all  times  and  circumstances,  it  has  avowed 
V^the^Constitution,  and  made  it  the  paramount  issue  ;(because, 
recognizing  in  the  vital  articles  of  its  own  existence  the  princi 
ple  of  decentralization!  it  is  constantly  capable  of  an  expansion 
limited  only  by  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  American  Union, 
and  attending  with  equal  steps  the  growth  and  progress  of  the 
country.  It  is  this  principle  of  decentralization,  peculiar  at 
once  to  the  Democratic  party,  and  to  what  may  be  called  the 
political  system  of  America,  that  manages  and  harmonizes  the 
diversity  of  interests  in  our  great  Union ;  that  secures  individ 
ual  rights  ;  and  that  supports  the  inestimable  doctrines  of  local 
independence  and  self-government.  Of  these  doctrines  an  elo 
quent  Democrat  has  written  :  "  Without  them  the  Union  wilJ 
be  forever  endangered.  With  them  it  will  fulfill  the  hopes  and 


DUTY   OP    THE    WHOLE    COUNTRY.  187 

prayers  of  all  patriots.  They  furnish  the  key  to  unlock  the 
magic  chambers  of  our  future.  They  are  the  safe  and  golden 
mean  between  the  extremes  of  faction" — 

"  The  wisdom  of  a  thousand  years 
.Isinthem.****** 
Turning  to  scorn,  with  lips  divine, 
The  falsehood  of  extremes." 

The  Democratic  is  the  only  existing  party  in  the  country 
that  boasts  "time-honoured  principles."  Judged  by  the  re 
sults  it  has  accomplished — and  there  is  no  juster  test — it  has 
been  one  of  the  most  beneficent  parties  in  history.  When  Mr. 
Seward  boasted,  in  1860,  that  the  Republican  party  was  about 
to  take  control  at  Washington,  Mr.  Hammond,  a  distinguished 
Senator  from  South  Carolina,  replied  that  the  Democratic  party 
would  surrender  the  country  "  without  a  stain  upon  her  honour, 
boundless  in  her  prosperity,  incalculable  in  her  strength,  the 
wonder  and  admiration  of  the  world."  He  described  the 
achievements  of  that  party,  continuing  his  reply  to  Mr.  Seward  : 
"  We  have  kept  the  government  conservative  to  the  great  pur 
poses  of  government.  We  have  placed  her  and  kept  her  upon 
the  Constitution ;  and  that  has  been  the  cause  of  your  peace 
and  prosperity.  Time  will  show  what  you  will  make  of  her; 
but  no  time  can  ever  diminish  our  glory  or  your  responsibility.'5 

That  the  Democratic  party  should  have  maintained  not  only 
its  organization,  but  a  distinct  identity  for  so  long  a  period  and 
through  so  many  changes  in  our  experience  as  a  nation ;  and 
that  even  it  should  have  survived  the  mutations  of  the  past  war, 
is  a  remarkable  phenomenon  and  testifies  to  an  extraordinary 
virtue.  The  party  appears  to-day  the  only  permanent  thing 
in  our  political  history ;  a  firm  link  to  the  past  in  the  multitude 


188  DUTY   OF   THE   WHOLE   COUNTRY. 

of  changes  that  have  befallen  us.  The  tribute  of  Martin  Van 
Buren  in  a  posthumous  work*  is  significant  in  this  respect : 
"  The  long  continued  support  of  a  majority  of  the  people — the 
only  test  of  political  merit  in  a  Republic — has  secured  a  pref 
erence  for  its  principles  of  which  it  may  well  be  proud ;  and 
the  general  fidelity  of  its  members  to  the  faith  they  profess  is 
creditably  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  after  all  the  changes  to 
which  its  organization  has  been  exposed,  its  ranks,  whatever 
may  be  the  case  as  to  some  of  its  leaders,  are  mainly  composed 
of  men  with  like  dispositions  with  those  by  whom  that  organi 
zation  was  effected. "  It  is  this  identity  of  which  the  Democratic 
party  is  especially  proud  ;  tracing  the  descent  of  its  principles 
from  the  fathers  of  the  Republic,  the  same  in  defeat  and  in 
victory,  and  even  emerging  from  the  changing  and  deforming 
influences  of  the  past  war  with  undiminished  similitude  to  what 
it  was  in  earlier  and  better  days  of  the  country. 

The  patriotic  contributions  of  the  Democratic  party  in  the 
past  are  historical,  accomplished  facts.  However  it  may  have 
wandered  on  particular  inferiour  questions  and  thereby  lost 
power  for  a  time,  it  is  remarkable  that  the  affections  of  the 
people  have  recalled  it,  on  all  occasions  when  the  general  princi 
ples  of  the  Government  are  to  be  decided.  Whenever  the 
question  has  been  between  the  Constitution  and  the  limitations 
of  authority  in  the  general  government,  the  Democratic  party 
has  won  on  its  favourite  doctrine  of  a  distribution  of  political 
power.  A  most  curious  evidence  of  the  strength  of  popular 
affection  for  this  peculiar  Democratic  doctrine  is  the  attempt 
of  the  Republican  party  to  appropriate  it,  in  1861,  and  to  incor 
porate  it  into  the  immediate  creed  on  which  they  came  into 
power.  How  the  avowals  of  the  latter  party  have  been  falsified, 

*  "  History  of  Political  Parties." 


DUTY    OF    THE    WHOLE    COUNTRY.  189 

and  they  have  reverted  to  the  worst  heresies  of  Consolidation,  tho 
world  knows  and  the  present  day  bears  testimony.  But  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party  did,  on  their  first  concession  to 
power,  attempt  to  conciliate  the  people  by  upholding  a  Demo 
cratic  model  of  government,  so  far  as  questions  of  political 
power  were  concerned,  cannot  be  denied,  in  the  face  of  the  de 
liberate  and  official  language  of  that  occasion.  In  the  platform 
upon  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  President,  and  which  he 
"repeated  in  his  inaugural  speech  "  the  maintenance  inviolate  of 
the  rights  of  the  States,  and  especially  of  the  right  of  each  State 
to  order  and  control  its  own  domestic  institutions,  according 
to  its  own  judgment  exclusively,  is  essential  to  that  balance  of 
power  on  which  the  perfection  and  endurance  of  our  political 
fabric  depend."  Again,  before  the  hypocritical  design  of  the 
Republican  party  had  been  accomplished,  it  was  declared  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  Attorney-General,  Mr.  Bates:  "absolute, 
despotic  power  over  the  lives,  the  liberties,  or  the  property  of 
freemen,  exists  nowhere  in  a  republic,  not  even  in  the  largest 
majority  of  the  people." 

These  assertions  are  interesting  now.  They  attest  the 
essential  power  of  a  principle  belonging  exclusively  to  the  Dem 
ocratic  school,  and  they  suggest  how  faithless  and  criminal  has 
been  the  party  that  attempted  to  appropriate  it  fora  temporary 
popularity.  .The  time  has  come  when,  again,  a  general 
appeal  is  made  against  Consolidation,  when  all  other  political 
concerns  are  sunk  in  comparison ;  and  we  may  expect  the 
Democratic  party  again  to  march  to  victory  on  the  supreme 
field  of  controversy.  It  is.  an  appeal  which,  if  made  single  and 
disscmbarrassed,  has  never  failed  of  success.  It  comes  to  us 
now  with  a  peculiar  force  added  by  time  and  circumstances. 
[f  the  American  peoole  believe,  as  they  have  frequently  testified 


190  DUTY    OP    THE   WHOLE    COUNTRY. 

by  their  votes,  that  Consolidation  leads  to  despotism,  that  to 
rule  a  territory  so  vast  as  theirs  by  a  single  free  government,  is 
impossible,  we  may  expect  that  the  appeal  against  the  experi 
ment  has  strengthened  from  developements  of  the  past,  and 
that  the  argument  has  increased  with  the  growth  and  greatness 
of  the  country.  It  is  an  argument  which  prevailed  when  we  had 
three  millions  of  people.  It  is  an  argument  which  returns  to 
us  now,  when  our  limits  extend  from  ocean  to  ocean,  and  when 
our  population  is  quite  forty  millions,  with  the  prospect  of  being 
eighty  to  one  hundred  millions  before  the  end  of  the  century  ! 


THE    GROWTH    AND    GREATNESS    OF    AMERICA. 

Curious  prophecies  of  Adams  and  Jefferson — America  in  1776 — Retrospect  of  Mr. 
Jefferson's  Government — Two  pictures  .at  Washing-ton — Three  visions  oi  an  empire 
in  America — The  Alleghanies,  the  Mississippi  River  and  the  Pacific  Ocean — Sum 
mary  of  the  present  resources  of  the  country — A  lesson  of  the  late  war — Value  of 
the  physical  greatness  of  America,  as  a  source  of  patriotic  inspiration — A  new 
interpretation  of  the  Union — The  peculiar  daiiger  of  a  revolution  against  the  Con 
stitution — A  remarkable  fact  about  European  Emigration — The  problem  of 
America,  territorial  consolidation  (not  political  consolidation) — President  Johnson'* 
tribute  to  the  Union. 

Two  of  the  most  remarkable  men  in  the  early  times  of 
America  were  Thomas  Jefferson  and  John  Adams.  Both  of 
these  illustrious  statesmen  who  had  commenced  manhood  in 
colonial  times,  who  had  been  co-adjutors  in  the  cause  of  the 
Revolution,  who  had  occupied,  in  turn,  the  eminence  of  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States,  and  who  had  carried  into  retire 
ment  the  reputation  of  sages,  rendering  Quincy  and  Monticello 
twin  names  of  the  political  oracles,  had  had  remarkable  vis 
ions  of  the  future  greatness  of  America.  That  of  Mr.  Adams 


DUTY   OP    THE    WHOLE    COUNTRY.  191 

was  more   wonderful,  and  accomplished   a  larger   interval  of 
time. 

As  early  as  1755,  the  future  statesman  of  Massachusetts, 
then  only  twenty  years  old,  wrote  to  a  friend  from  his  medita 
tions  at  Worcester  :  "  Soon  after  the  reformation,  a  few  people 
came  over  into  this  new  world  for  conscience  sake.  Perhaps 
this  apparently  trivial  incident  may  transfer  the  great  seat  of 
empire  into  America.  It  looks  likely  to  me ;  for,  if  we  can 
remove  the  turbulent  Gallics-,  our  people,  according  to  the  ex- 
actest  computations,  will  in  another  century  become  more  nu 
merous  than  England  itself.  Should  this  be  the  case,  since  we 
have,  I  may  say,  all  the  naval  stores  of  the  nation  in .  our 
hands,  it  will  be  easy  to  obtain  a  mastery  of  the  seas ;  and  the 
united  force  of  all  Europe  will  not  be  able  to  subdue  us  !"  It 
was  a  bold  prophecy,  even  to  repeat,  when  Mr.  Adams  saw  the 
independence  of  America  accomplished,  and  the  new  impetus 
of  enterprise,  and  new  career  of  progress  dated  from  this 
great  event. 

At  the  Revolutionary  period,  America  contained  230,000 
white  people,  and  was  a  ragged  piece  of  territory  between  the 
seaboard  and  the  mountain  ranges,  extending  about  a  thousand 
miles  on  the  Atlantic  coast  from  the  Penobscot  to  the  Altama- 
ha,  and  averaging  a  width  of  not  more  than  a  hundred  miles. 
If  one  will  take  a  pencil  and  trace  on  the  map  the  course  of 
the  American  settlements  of  that  day,  he  will  mark  out  a  thin 
country,  an  irregular  border  upon  the  bays,  harbours  and  inlets, 
averaging  a  hundred  miles  inland  from  the  coast,  with  here 
and  there  a  projection  to  the  bases  of  the  mountain  ranges 
and  even  some  slight  tendrils  winding  through  the  fertile  val 
leys  of  these  natural  barriers.  Without  steam,  without  canals 
and  even  without  tolerable  highways,  the  population  of  that 


192  DUTY    OF    THE    WHOLE    COUNTRY. 

day  hugged  the  ocean,  or  clung  to  the  banks  of  such  rivers  as 
furnished  convenient  means  for  transporting  heavy  product? 
to  or  from  the  seaboard.  In  Virginia,  the  settlements  were 
mainly  in  the  river  bottoms  of  the  tide-water  region.  There 
were  already  some  efforts  at  migration  westward ;  but  although 
they  had  penetrated  the  Alleghanies,  and  made  some  "  clear 
ings  "  in  that  part  of  Virginia  which  is  now  Kentucky,  they 
were  but  juts  in  the  geographical  outline,  and  had  scarcely 
more  than  blazed  the  pathways  of  adventure.  The  great 
Mississippi  was  unknown  but  as  a  distant  landmark  in  the  pos 
sessions  of  a  foreign  power ;  the  valleys  of  the  Illinois,  Wa- 
bash,  and  the  Ohio,  were  scarcely  habitable  for  civilized  men ; 
the  Atlantic  slopes  even  were  yet  contested  by  Indian  tribes, 
and  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  third  President  of  the  United 
States,  had  been  born  at  Shadwell,  a  short  distance  from  Mon- 
ticello,  when  the  trails  of  the  hostile  Monacans  or  Tuscaroras 
were  yet  fresh  on  his  lands  and  through  the  adjacent  hills. 

Yet  Mr.  Jefferson  counted  ten  millions  of  freemen  under 
his  authority  as  President ;  and  people  of  those  times,  looking 
at  their  expansion  and  increase,  began  to  think  that  the  vision 
of  Mr.  Adams  might  be  something  more  than  the  vagary  of  a 
self-constituted  wise-acre.  But  Mr.  Jefferson's  government 
was  a  small  affair  compared  with  the  statistical  standards  of 
the  present ;  and  it  is  curious  to  look  back  upon  the  anxieties 
of  his  day,  and  measure  them  with  the  mighty  concerns  of  the 
present.  Think  of  the  annual  expenditures  of  a  government 
averaging  only  six  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  yet  a  clamour 
about  economy ;  the  entire  standing  army  of  the  United 
States  a  single  brigade,  consisting  of  two  regiments  of  infant 
ry  and  one  of  artillery,  and  yet  a  jealousy  of  the  military 
power ;  a  public  debt  of  fifty-four  millions,  twelve  millions  of 


DUTY   OP   THE   WHOLE    COUNTRY.  193 

which  were  only  owed  abroad,  and  yet  its  management  an  oc 
casion  of  tho  greatest  alarm,  and  Hamilton's  "  treasury 
schemes  "  denounced  as  the  foundation  of  an  overshadowing 
plutocratic  power  in  the  United  States  !  Put  against  these  the 
present  annual  expenditure,  of  which  but  a  single  item,  that 
of  the  War  Office,  and  in  time  of  peace,  too,  is  $177,000,000  ;*. 
a  military  establishment  numbering  56,000  men ;  and  a  pub 
lic  debt  of  $2,500,528,827,  by  the  last  monthly  account  of  the 
treasury,  May  1868, — and  we  may  have  some  idea  of  the  vast 
interval  between  the  government  of  Jefferson  and  that  of  the 
present  imperial  concern  at  Washington.  They  are  as  far 
apart  as  two  different  ages — pictures  as  unlike  as  if  they  were 
brought  in  confront  from  the  most  distant  quarters  of  the 
earth  ;  and  although  our  progress  is,  of  course,  not  measured 
by  these  figures,  which  are  to  a  large  extent  exceptional,  yet 
they  sufficiently  indicate  how  our  ideas  have  expanded  when 
they  can  take  into  easy  and  undisturbed  calculations  such 
standards  of  magnitude,  which,  sixty  years  ago,  would  have 
been  simply  incredible. 

The  greatness  of  America  seems  to  have  first  become  a  seri 
ous  and  practical  thought  with  the  great  additions  to  its  terri 
tory  made  by  Mr.  Jefferson.  These,  including  the  purchase 
of  Louisiana  and  the  treaties  with  the  Kaskaskia  Indians,  the 
latter  acquiring  a  broad  belt  of  territory  extending  from  the 
mouth  of  the  Illinois  River  "  to  and  up  the  Ohio, "  actually 
doubled  the  area  of  the  United  States,  and  opened  startling 
visions  of  empire.  Mr.  Jefferson  had  a  prophetic  mind  with 
reference  to  the  Great  Valley  of  the  Mississippi,  which  was 


*  The  expenses  of  the  "War  Department  for  the  month  of  March  last  are  set  down  at 
$13,960,000— a  greater  sum  than  the  whole  yearly  expenses  of  the  Government  under 
John  Quiucy  Adams. 

9 


194  DUTY   OP    THE   WHOLE    COUNTRY. 

then  almost  terra  incognita  to  his  countrymen ;  he  saw  the 
vital  necessity  of  the  use  and  outlet  of  the  great  river,  when 
he  declared,  "  I  would  not  give  one  inch  of  the  waters  of  the 
Mississippi  to  any  nation."  The  value  of  the  acquisition  may 
be  estimated  from  the  facts  that  this  river  is  two  thousand 
miles  in  extent,  with  one  of  its  tributaries  doubling  the  parent 
stream  in  its  length ;  that  it  drains  by  its  waters  1,200,000  square 
miles;  that  it  floats  the  internal  commerce  of  twelve  States, 
and  that  the  steamers  thus  employed  were  accounted,  before 
the  late  war,  to  be  worth  sixty  millions  of  dollars.  It  is  to 
day  the  vast  interests  contained  in  this  river,  which,  more  than 
any  other  natural  cause,  maintain  the  balance  and  integrity  of 
the  American  Union ;  it  has  contributed  to  the  homogeneous- 
ness  and  unity  of  the  nation ;  formed  its  character  and  civili 
zation  ;  and  put  it  in  the  precise  position  wherein  to  control 
forever  and  indisputably  the  destinies  of  the  western  hemi 
sphere. 

On  the  acquisition  of  the  Mississippi  River,  Mr.  Jefferson 
proposed:  "When  we  shall  be  full  on  this  side,  we  may  lay 
off  a  range  of  States  on  the  western  bank,  from  the  head  to  the 
mouth,  and  so,  range  after  range,  advancing  compactly  as  we 
multiply."  The  advance  of  "  range  after  range''  has  been 
made  beyond  his  expectations,  and  the  third  vision  of  empire 
— the  first  bounded  by  the  Alleghanies,  the  second  embracing 
the  Mississippi — now  unrolls  to  the  shore  of  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
Few  persons,  even  of  the  present  day,  have  comprehended  the 
extent  of  this  last  and  most  effulgent  apparition  of  the  great 
ness  of  our  country.  A  new  territorial  phrase  has  come  into 
vogue,  and  we  speak  of  " the  Pacific  slope"  after  the  same 
idea  in  which  we  spoke  sixty  years  ago  of  "  the  Atlantic  slope." 
It  is  the  new  natural  feature  of  our  territorial  empire.  In  a 


DUTY   OF   THE   WHOLE    COUNTRY  195 

recent  report  of  the  Land  Commissioner  at  Washington,  "the 
Pacific  slope  "  is  described  as  1,000  miles  long  and  680  miles 
wide,  with  an  area  of  over  831,000  square  miles,  or  about 
5,000,000,000  of  acres— sufficient  to  inhabit  100,000,000  people, 
that  is,  not  only  to  give  them  room,  but  to  afford,  from  its 
varied  and  bountiful  resources,  all  the  subsistence  of  civilized 
life.  How  much  of  this  and  our  other  vast  Western  possessions 
is  as  yet  uninhabited,  even  to  the  extent  of  not  being  "  claimed  " 
by  settlers,  or  appropriated  to  railroads,  may  be  judged  from 
the  fact  that  there  is  yet  the  immense  amount  of  1,400,000,000 
acres  of  public  land,  including  the  lately  acquired  Russian 
territory- — a  vast  domain ^as  yet  unpartitioned  to  enterprise, 
unvexed  by  grants,  with  the  title  of  the  G-overnment  slumbering 
in  it,  awaiting  the  advance  and  solicitations  of  a  civilization 
that  has  not  yet  approached  it. 

The  total  area  of  our  country  (not  including  Alaska)  is 
calculated  at  3,250,000  square  miles — larger  than  the  whole 
of  Europe ;  exhibiting  all  the  ranges  of  climate  from  St.  Peters 
burg  to  Canton ;  and  nearly  one-third  of  this  vast  domain, 
that  is  one  million  square  miles,  is  gold-producing,  stretching 
from  British  Columbia  to  Mexico,  containing  two  States  and 
four  territories,  and  yielding  minerals  reckoned,  since  1862,  at 
one  hundred  million  dollars  per  annum. 

It  is  thus  not  only  the  magnitude  of  spaces  we  have  to  deal 
with.  Territorial  expansion  adds  affluent  fields  of  civilization 
and  industry  and  opens  almost  interminable  avenues  of  enter 
prise.  The  animating  prospect  on  the  Pacific  slope  is  not  lim 
ited  by  the  ocean,  but  reaches  to  the  producing  regions  of  East 
ern  Asia.  The  trade  of  the  Indies,  of  China,  of  Japan,  of  all 
the  eastern  world,  must  flow  into  this  country,  and  throughout 
this  country  to  the  rest  of  mankind.  We  are  already  3,000 


196  DUTY   OP   THE    WHOLE    COUNTRY. 

miles  ahead  of  England  in  our  routes  to  China,  Japan  and 
the  Indies ;  and  an  official  assurance  is  given  from  Washing 
ton  that,  by  October,  1869,  the  main  Pacific  Railroad  will  be 
finished,  and  the  great  steam  horse  will  carry  us  from  New 
York  to  San  Francisco  direct. 

From  the  very  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  we  have  already 
the  intelligence  that  this  Railroad  has  been  completed  to  that 
point,  and  that,  five  hundred  miles  from  Omaha,  the  locomotive 
is  still  pushing  its  way  westward.     It  is  a  great  and  marvel 
ous  fact — an  exhibition  of  American  vigour — almost  without  a 
parallel  even  in  these    progressive    times.     A  few   years    ago 
Omaha  itself  was  an  unknown  spot,  in  a  trackless  wild,  almost 
unindicated  in  our  geography ;  now  five    hundred   miles  west 
of  it  to  Cheyenne  City,  at  the  base  of  the    Rocky  Mountains, 
we  have  a  railroad  completely  equipped,  aud  so  closely  follow 
ed  by  population  and  industrial  enterprise  that    its  net   earn 
ings  for  one  quarter  of  the  past  year  have  been  nearly  half  a 
million  dollars;  this  amount  being  realized  from  its  local  busi 
ness.     When  the  road  is  completed,  it  will  form  a  single  line 
of  1,830  miles,  passing    through    Dakota,   Utah  and    Nevada, 
with  feeders  running  from  Colorado  and  Idaho,  and  with  con 
nections    again  branching  east  from  Omaha  to    Chicago,    run 
ning  down  to  Cincinnati  and  St.  Louis,  and  terminating  in  the 
great  Atlantic  cities,  New  York,   Philadelphia  and  Baltimore, 
accomplishing  a  distance  of  over  3,000  miles  across    the    con 
tinent,  and  forming  a  great  connecting  link   between   Europe 
and  Asia,  opening  to   the   Old   World   the    shortest  route  to 
China  and  Japan.     It  is  a  mighty  picture,  a  grand  diorama  of 
progress,  a  new  age  of  commerce.     For   one   thousand   years 
the  stream  of  Eastern  trade   and  travel  has  flowed  in  one   di 
rection  ;  now  a  new  highway  is   designed  for   it,   which   wil1 


DUTY   OP    THE   WHOLE    COUNTRY.  197 

transport  the  commodities  of  Asia  along  with  the  treasures 
pouring  in  from  the  mines  of  our  new  Territories,  and  stock 
with  homes  and  all  the  appliances  of  modern  civilization  a 
wild  country,  hitherto  a  haunt  for  savages,  and  a  dismal  curiosity 
in  our  geography 

But  one  generation  ago   there   was    scarcely   a   railroad  in 
America.     Now  we  have  37,000   miles  of  completed   railroad 
in  this  country,  which,  since   their   commencement,  is    at   the 
rate  of  1,000  miles  a  year;  and   there    are  in   course  of  con 
struction  17,880  miles    of  railroad.     For   many   years    after 
the  revolution,  manufactures  was  scarcely  a  recognized  branch 
of  American  industry.     By  the  returns  of  the  last  census  they 
amounted    in  value   to    $1,900,000,000.     The  first   decennial 
census  estimated  our  annual   exports  at   nineteen   millions    of 
dollars.     The  census  of  1860  showed  them  as  more   than  four 
hundred  millions  of  dollars,  whereof -all  but  twenty-seven  mil 
lions  were  of  domestic  production.     Within  the  memory  of  the 
present  generation  Great  Britain  was   undisputed  mistress  of 
the  seas.     In  1860  the  United  States  had  the  largest    fleet    of 
merchant  vessels  afloat,  Great    Britain  second,  France    third, 
and  Germany  fourth.     In  the  same  year  the  real  and  personal 
estate  of  our  people  was  estimated  in  round   numbers  as    six 
teen  thousand  millions  of  dollars ;  and  "it  is  perfectly  safe  to 
assume, "( says  Mr.  Horace  Greeley,  "  that  fifteen  of  the  sixteen 
thousand  millions  of  property   returned,  in    1860,  had   been 
created  and  added  to  the  wealth  of  the  world  by  the  industry, 
enterprise  and  thrift  of  our  people,  during  the  eighty  preced 
ing  years." 

These  vast  figures  suffice  to  measure  the  growth  and  great 
ness  of  our  country — to  place  the  prospect  and  the  retrospect 
in  their  proper  relations  to  each  other — without  descending  to 


198  DUTY   OP   THE   WHOLE   COUNTRY. 

that  multitude   of  statistical  details,   the   effect  of  which   is 
rather  to  vex  and  dull  the  reader  than  to    enlighten   and   im 
press  him.     It  is  easy  to  revamp   pages  of  the    census  into   a 
chapter  or  article ;  but  such  statistical  exhibits  too   often   be 
wilder  and  distress  the  mind,  instead  of  making  the  distinct  and 
deep  impression  that  is  desired.     Indeed,  it  is  much  from  this 
unpleasant  treatment  of  the    subject,  this   burdening   it   with 
numbers  past  recollection,   and  from    excessive  repetitions   of 
the  theme,  that    the  greatness  of  America  does  not   impress 
our  people  as  it  should,  and  sometimes   fails  of  attention,    as 
the    decantatum  of  demagogues ;  although   it  is,  to-day,    the 
standing   marvel  of  all  intelligent   curiosity   in   Europe,    the 
phenomenon  of  the  age,  the  unequaled  wonder  of  modern  times, 
the  greatest  practical  problem  of  humanity.     There  is  nothing 
in  history  like  the  rapid  growth  of  our    country.     The  great 
ness  of  England  since  the  day  of  the  Stuarts,    when  as    Mac- 
auldy  declared  she  ascended  from  a  fifth-rate  power  to  the  first 
rank — the  most    prominent    event  in   the   modern  history   of 
Europe — is  an   affair  of  centuries ;  while  a  few   decades   have 
served  to  accomplish  the   present   wonders  of  American  pro 
gress.     There   were   men    in  Europe,  a  few  years  ago,  who 
thought  or  hoped  the  greatness  of  America  would   expire    or 
much  dimmish  in  the  convulsions  of  the  recent   war ;  but  the 
very  revelations  of  our  greatness  which  that  war  has  made,  not 
only  to  the  world  but  to  ourselves,  will  yet  prove  morally  more 
valuable  than  all  that  has  been  lost  or  ravaged  in  the  collisions 
of  our  arms.     Those  revelations  could  have  been  made    more 
powerfully,  more  conspicuously  in  no  other  way  ;  and   it  is  re 
markable  that  there  never   has    been  a   period  of  time,  or   a 
position  of  retrospect,  wherein    the    united   American   people 
have  been  more  convinced  of  their  greatness,  or  more  awaken- 


DUTY   OP   THE   WHOLE    COUNTRY.  199 

cd  to  put  forth  their  energies,  and  make  conquests  of  the 
future,  than  when  contemplating  the  displays  of  the  past  war, 
and  surveying  the  monuments  of  power,  which  it  has  left  us  as 
new  standards  and  new  inspirations  of  our  national  life. 

One  view  naturally  comes  here  to  the  mind,  in  which  the 
growth  and  greatness  of  our  country  is  of  sublime  and  sur 
passing  interest.  It  is,  that  in  the  presence  of  this  mighty  pic 
ture  all  mere  party  controversies  fall  into  insignificance  ;  that 
it  is  the  vital  inspiration  of  our  patriotism,  the  constant  appeal 
to  our  loyaltv,  kindling  the  best  sentiments  of  the  citizen,  and  as 
sociating  with  his  pride  his  duties  to  the  Government.  Every 
one  who  dared  to  read  his  heart  within  the  past  few  years  must 
recall  how  powerful  was  that  argument  against  the  war,  which 
plead  the  united  greatness  and  glory  of  the  country,  and  ap 
pealed  from  that  alone  to  the  sentiment  of  patriotism.  Almost 
every  nation  has  its  traditional,  peculiar  appeal  by  which  its 
patriotism  is  excited,  and  its  arms  summoned  to  great  trials. 
With  us  it  is  traditional  only  to  a  limited  extent ;  it  is  not  so 
much  the  inspiration  coming  from  names  and  deeds  numbered 
in  distant  periods  of  history,  as  it  is  the  present  visible  impres 
sion  of  the  greatness  of  our  country,  engaging  our  pride  and 
hopes  and  curiosity,  and  inciting  the  resolution  to  keep  in 
tact  the  vast  magnificent  picture  so  admirable  to  the  world. 
Its  very  extent  forbids  its  division  or  mutilation.  It  is  like  a 
holy  unity  of  art,  not  to  be  marred  by  the  substitution  of  a 
single  part  or  circumstance.  Our  patriotism  passes  into  poetry ; 
and  as  an  artist  pleads  for  the  very  fullness  of  his  conception, 
the  American  citizen,  aroused  and  strengthened  by  a  new  in 
spiration,  contends  for  the  completeness  and  integrity,  the  dra 
matic  unity  of  the  great  picture  of  his  country's  power  and 
glory. 


200  DUTY    OP    THE   WHOLE   COUNTRY. 

But  there  is  yet  another  reflection  on  this  picture,  and  one 
we  have  especially  designed  in  its  production  to  the  reader. 
It  is  to  suggest  enlarged  solicitude  for  the  future  of  the  Govern 
ment  entrusted  with  concerns  so  vast  and  magnificent ;  to  in 
crease  and  animate  the  endeavours  of  the  patriotic  to  preserve  a 
form  of  government  which  has  been  so  beneficent,  and  which, 
we  shall  presently  see,  is  alone  competent  to  deal  with  such  an 
extent  and  diversity  of  interests.  In  the  presence  of  the  picture 
we  have  exhibited,  we  are  entering  a  second  great  era  of  Ame 
rican  history — the  era  of  Re-union,  ensuing  after  a  fierce  and 
terrible  war.  It  is  a  common  disposition  of  political  parties  to 
seize  on  all  eras,  all  great  convulsions  in  history,  and  convert 
them  to  the  purposes  of  a  revolution  in  their  peculiar  interest. 
It  is  this  tendency  we  have  been  called  upon  to  resist  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  late  war  ;  and  the  great  popular  care  is  that 
this  second  era  of  the  nation  may  be  a  continuation  of  former 
peace  and  prosperity  and  not  a  revolutionary  succession,  haz 
arding  not  only  the  abundant  fruits  and  accumulations  of  the 
past,  but  the  future  life  of  the  nation. 

A  revolution  as  against  the  peculiar  political  system  of  the 
Union  is  for  the  American  people  far  more  vital  and  important 
than  most  of  the  revolutions,  of  which  we  have  an  account  in 
history,  such  as  merely  imply  the  change  of  a  dynasty,  or  the 
reform  of  an  administration.  We  maintain  this  proposition  on 
the  ground  that  the  present  government  of  America  with  its 
peculiar  distribution  of  political  powers  is  the  only  possible 
one  for  such  an  extent  of  country  and  such  a  character  of  popu 
lation,  and  that  thus  the  question  of  the  government  and  the 
question  of  the  life  of  the  nation,  are,  as  does  not  often  happen 
in  history,  identified,  and  become  one  and  inseparable. 

There  is  nothing  more  remarkable  in  the.  ?otemporary  polit- 


DUTY   OF    THE    WHOLE    COUNTRY.  201 

ical  world  than  the  composite  character  of  the  American 
people.  It  is  perhaps  not  pleasant  to  our  vanity  to  recognize 
how  much  we  are  indebted  in  our  elements  of  progress  to  the 
streams  of  foreign  population,  which  have  continued  to  flow  in 
upon  us  within  the  term  of  our  national  independence.  We 
recollect  a  recent  estimate,  referring  to  the  census  of  1860, 
made  in  a  work  of  Sir  Morton  Peto  on  America,  and  since 
adopted  in  the  speech  of  a  United  States  Senator,  that  the 
European  emigrants  to  America  and  their  descendants,  in  the 
present  century,  to  the  date  referred  to,  numbered  twenty  one 
million,  or  about  two-thirds  of  our  population  in  1860!  Tin 
singular  fact  appears  from  this,  that  not  more  than  one-third  tf 
our  population  is  native,  in  the  sense  of  being  traced  to  Ameri 
can  parentage,  since  1800.  If  we  look  behind  that  date,  we 
may  go  back  to  the  colonial  history,  and  we  find  a  country  incon 
gruously  settled  by  Swedes,  Dutch,  French,  Spanish  and 
English.  What  is  remarkable,  too,  is  the  want  of  binding 
moral  influences  in  a  population  so  mixed.  We  have  none  of 
the  harmonizing  influence  of  a  uniform  spiritual  belief.  We 
receive  every  day  enormous  bodies  of  emigrants  bringing  with 
them  the  most  various  ideas  about  religion  and  government. 
We  live  under  the  influences  of  a  constant  and  reciprocal  action 
between  America  and  Europe,  which  confuses  every  attempt  at 


In  this  condition  of  things  it  is  evident  that  the  problem,  for 
America  to  solve,  is  territorial  consolidation  ( not  political  con 
solidation  ).  If  the  ingenuity  of  man  had  been  taxed  for  a 
system  of  government  to  suit  this  extra-ordinary  condition,  the 
invention  could  not  be  more  exact  than  the  American  Union, 
as  devised  in  1787,  founded  on  the  novel,  admirable  idea  of  a 
confederate  unity,  standing  in  some  respects  for  a  national 

9* 


202  DUTY   OF   THE    WHOLE    COUNTRY. 

identity,  a  complete  territorial  consolidation,  limited  and 
qualified  by  the  principle  of  local  sovereignty.  We  can  really 
imagine  no  other  possible  accomodation  of  the  incongruous 
population  of  America,  feeling,  as  they  do,  the  necessity  of  a 
general  government  for  certain  purposes,  yet  having  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  attachment  to  their  local  institutions,  and  deeply  pene 
trated  by  a  love  of  individual  liberty,  than  in  the  Union  as 
formed  by  our  fathers.  It  is  the  Union  in  this  interpretation 
which  is  now  imperiled  by  the  designs  of  a  revolutionary 
party,  and  with  it  all  the  greatness  and  growth  of  America. 

"  It, "  says  President  Johnson,  speaking  of  the  Union  ho 
defends,  "  is  the  best  form  of  government  the  world  ever  saw. 
No  other  is  or  can  be  so  well  adapted  to  the  genius,  habits 
or  wants  of  the  American  people.  Combining  the  strength  of 
a  great  empire  with  unspeakable  blessings  of  local  self-govern 
ment,  having  a  central  power  to  defend  the  general  interests, 
and  recognizing  the  authority  of  the  States  as  the  guardians 
of  industrial  rights,  it  is  the  sheet-anchor  of  our  safety  abroad, 
and  our  peace  at  home." 


DUTY  OF  THE  WHOLE  COUNTRY, 


THE  TRUE  NATURE  AND  SERVICE  OP  THE  UNION. 

The  political  novelty  of  the  American  Union — No  mission  apart  from  the  States — A 
curious  reflection  on  political  science — Thomas  Jefferson's  idea  of  "ward  republics  " 
—Political  decentralization  in  America— "The  Union  as  it  was,"  the  logical  expres 
sion  of  the  "  Lost  Cause  "—The  Union,  as  an  object  of  idolatry— Necessity  of  an 
element  of  reverence  in  our  political  system — Consolidation  more  odious  than 
Secession — Power  and  certainty  of  public  opinion  arising  out  of  the  nature  oi  the 
Union — A  new  value  of  State  institutions — Public  opinion,  the  supreme  ruler  and 
the  last  arbiter. 

It  is  very  well  known,  that  preceding  that  union  of  the  States 
constructed  after  the  Revolution,  there  had  been  a  number  of 
other  unions  or  confederations.  But  these  were  mere  pacts  or 
leagues ;  they  did  not  contain  the  distinctive  trait  and  virtue  of 
the  union  of  1787,  in  which  the  world  was  to  see  for  the  first 
time  combined  and  harmonized  the  principle  of  geographical 
sovereignties  with  that  of  a  confederation  which,  for  certain 
purposes,  and  especially  in  the  regard  of  foreign  powers,  was  to 
stand  as  a  distinct,  uniform  nationality. 

The  political  novelty,  the  peculiar  and  fundamental  idea  of 
the  Union  was  simple  enough.  It  was  the  combination  of  a 
common  chief  magistracy  with  the  largest  reservation  of  liberty 
in  its  constituents,  and  the  assertion  of  local  institutions  as  the 
main  depositories  of  political  power.  The  idea  of  such  a  chief 
magistracy,  erected  for  the  national  good,  controlled  by  tho 
will  of  the  parties  to  it,  resting  on  the  voluntary  basis,  strength 
ened  by  moral  considerations,  and  severely  limited  by  the 
principle  of  local  independence,  was  new  to  the  world,  and,  as 
we  shall  shortly  see,  was  a  capital  step  towards  perfection  in 
the  science  of  government. 


204  DUTY   OP    THE    WHOLE    COUNTRY. 

The  reader  anxious  to  comprehend  this  new  political  system 
must  bear  in  mind  that  the  necessity  which  originated  the  Union 
was  a  necessity  for  purely  economical  purposes.  The  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States,  considered  in  a  broad,  historical 
light,  was  not  a  revolution,  in  the  sense  of  a  proclamation  of  a 
new  civil  polity;  for  the  civil  institutions  of  the  State,  as 
derived  from  the  common  law  of  England,  were  already  perfect 
and  satisfactory,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  they  have  remained 
without  material  change  for  nearly  a  century. 

The  new  Union  was  not  a  political  revolution.  It  was  a 
convenience  of  the  States,  growing  out  of  their  wants  of  a 
system  by  which  they  might  have  a  common  agent,  and  a  uni 
form  code  on  concerns  common  between  themselves.  It  is  in 
this  sense,  indeed,  that  the  moral  significance  of  the  American 
Union  is  interpreted  ;  in  this  sense  its  great  political  virtue 
was  contained.  There  was  put  before  the  eyes  of  mankind  not 
a  consolidated  nationality  ;  not  a  simple  republic  with  an  anom 
alous  and  indescribable  appendage  of  "  States,  "  which  are 
not  provinces,  or  cantons,  or  territories,  and  yet,  in  a  sense, 
subordinate ;  not  some  undefined  and  mis-shapen  political 
mongrel ;  but  a  spectacle,  such  as  it  had  never  seen — an  asso 
ciation  of  co-equal  and  sovereign  States,  with  a  common  au 
thority,  the  subjects  of  which  were  sufficient  to  give  it  the 
effect  of  an  American  and  national  identity — a  government 
which  derived  its  entire  life  from  the  good  will,  the  mutual 
interests  and  the  unconstrained  devotion  of  the  States  which  at 
once  originated  and  composed  it. 

The  Union  was  to  be  limited  by  its  beneficence  to  the  States. 
It  had  no  dynastic  element ;  it  had  no  mission  apart  from  tho 
States  ;  it  had  no  independent  authority  over  individuals,  ex 
cept  within  the  scope  of  the  powers  delegated  to  it  by  the 


DUTY    OP    THE   WHOLE    COUNTRY.  205 

States.  In  short,  it  was  a  compact  which  covered  only  the 
interests  which  it  specified,  yet  quite  large  enough  to  stand  as 
an  American  nationality  for  all  practical  purposes. 

The  science  of  government  is  fundamentally  of  the  simplest 
description.  The  sage  who  wished  his  son  to  attend  a  great 
political  convention,  that  he  might  see  what  little  wisdom  it 
took  to  govern  the  world,  expressed  a  profound  truth,  and  not 
a  flippant  satire,  or  a  melancholy  reflection,  as  some  have  inter 
preted  it.  When  we  come  to  penetrate  with  an  analytic  philo 
sophy  the  most  excellent  of  man's  inventions,  we  discover  the 
invariable  condition  of  extreme  simplicity  of  the  fundamental 
idea,  co-existent  with  a  multitude  of  details  enlarging  and  per 
fecting  the  application — the  degree  of  perfection  being  in  pro 
portion  to  the  number  and  exactness  of  these  details.  The 
progress  of  all  perfection  is  in  details — the  intricacy  of  the 
superstructure  erected  on  a  simple  idea.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  steam  engine :  what  more  simple  than  the  expansive  move 
ment  of  steam,  and  the  application  of  leverage  to  it !  But  on 
this  principle  we  find  constructed  a  net-work  of  machinery, 
which  together  becomes  more  nice  and  powerful  in  action,  in 
precise  proportion  to  the  number  of  details,  as  long  as  these 
are  properly  adjusted. 

The  two  conditions  of  human  invention — simplicity  of  the 
fundamental  idea  and  multiplicity  of  details — are  singularly 
well  fulfilled  in  the  political  structure  of  the  American  Union. 
We  have  at  the  foundation  the  simple  idea  of  the  union  of  a 
General  Government  with  State  Rights — the  union  of  a  com 
mon  magistracy  with  reservations  of  local  liberty — and  on 
this  idea  our  true  progress  in  government  is  to  multiply,  to 
adjust,  to  interlace  the  relations  between  the  State  and  the 
General  Government — to  produce  the  greatest  possible  intri- 


DUTY   OF    THE   WHOLE    COUNTRY. 

cacy  without  creating  confusion.  The  peculiar  task  of  Ameri 
can  statesmanship,  its  most  intelligent  and  highest  mission, 
is  to  be  constantly  adding  to,  adjusting  and  refining  these 
relations  between  the  central  and  local  authorities ;  is  to  sub 
divide  the  political  power  to  the  extremest  limits ;  is  to  mul 
tiply  as  much  as  possible  the  local  depositories  of  power.  No 
man  better  conceived  this  idea  of  American  statesmanship 
growing  out  of  the  peculiar  nature  of  our  government  than  did 
Thomas  Jefferson.  He  was  for  following  "the  principle  of  local 
liberty  in  the  State  governments  to  yet  further  institutions, 
and  subdividing  the  political  power  of  the  country  even  down 
to  ward  republics.  In  a  letter  to  Samuel  Kercheval,  dated  in 
1816,  proposing  certain  changes  in  the  Constitution  of  Vir 
ginia  he  wrote :  "  These  wards,  called  townships  in  New  Eng 
land,  are  the  vital  principle  of  their  governments,  and  have 
proved  themselves  the  wisest  invention  ever  devised  by  the 
wit  of  man  for  the  perfect  exercise  of  self-government  and 
for  its  preservation.  We  shall  thus  marshal  our  Government 
into,  1.  The  general  Federal  republic,  for  all  concerns  foreign 
and  federal;  2.  That  of  the  State,  for  what  relates  to  our 
own  citizens  exclusively;  3.  The  county  republics,  for  the 
duties  and  concerns  of  the  county;  and  4.  The  ward  repub 
lics,  for  the  small  and  yet  numerous  and  interesting  concerns 
of  the  neighbourhood :  and  in  governnent,  as  well  as  in  every 
other  business  of  life,  it  is  by  division  and  subdivision  of  duties 
alone,  that  all  matters,  great  and  small,  can  be  managed  to 
perfection." 

Understanding  that  the  true  direction  of  American  states 
manship  is  essentially  to  political  decentralization ;  that  it  is  a 
necessity  growing  out  of  the  very  nature  of  our  government, 
we  may  better  appreciate  the  extent  of  aberration  of  the  revo- 


DUTY   OP    THE    WHOLE   COUNTRY.  207 

lutionary  party  now  governing  at  Washington.  It  is  to  bring 
our  remarks  to  this  point  that  the  foregoing  reflections  have 
been  designed. 

"  The  Union,  as  it  was,  "  is  the  true  and  logical  expression 
of  that  "Lost  Cause  "  which  the  country  is  in  prospect  of  re 
gaining,  or  on  the  point  of  losing  forever.  It  is  the  most 
captivating  and  powerful  phrase  in  which  the  controversy  can 
be  expressed,  in  behalf  of  the  South,  and  of  the  conservative 
party  of  the  country.  We  repeat  the  firm  belief,  on  which  we 
have  enlarged  in  the  foregoing  pages,  that  the  party  of  Con 
solidation  stands,  at  present,  in  weaker  attitude  than  ever 
before  in  the  history  of  the  country ;  because  it  has  attached 
to  it  the  unpopular  and  odious  particular  measure  of  the  ele 
vation  of  the  Negro,  at  the  expense  of  the  constitutional  and 
traditional  liberty  of  the  white  man  in  America.  But,  again, 
the  danger  is,  that  that  party  has  already  so  progressed  in  power 
by  increasing  ratios,  has  accumulated  so  much  of  influence, 
that  it  will  be  difficult  to  arrest  it  on  the  unpopularity  of  par 
ticular  measures.  We  have,  therefore,  conceived  the  necessity, 
after  having  discussed  in  previous  parts  of  this  work  Consoli 
dation,  with  reference  to  its  special  topics  of  Reconstruction 
and  Negrophilism,  to  exhibit  the  abstract  and  essential  evils 
of  the  doctrine,  apart  from  particular  questions,  and  thus  com 
plete  the  argument  against  the  revolutionary  movement  taking 
place  in  our  government. 

The  last  and  supreme  exhibition  of  the  so-called  Radical  par 
ty  is  that  in  which  it  combats  the  true  principle  of  the  Union, 
and  destroys  the  peculiar  and  essential  sources  of  American 
patriotism.  Our  affections  for  the  Union  can  only  be  explained 
on  the  grand  and  august  theory  of  co-equal  sovereign  States, 
ennobled  by  mutual  confidences,  enthused  by  common  affections, 


208  DUTY   OP    THE   WHOLE    COUNTRY. 

inspired  by  a  single   destiny.     This  is    the  peculiarity  of  our 
political  system ;  this  the  especial  form  of  our  patriotism. 

This  peculiarity  and  the  affections  which  attach  to  it,  Con 
solidation  at  once  destroys.  It  reduces  "the  glorious  Union  " 
to  a  mere  geographical  name  ;  it  makes  it  only  the  convenient 
designation  of  a  certain  extent  ot"  territory,  without  any  par 
ticular  claims  upon  our  regards.  The  Union  has  lost  its  dis 
tinctive  moral  traits,  and  the  affections  which  have  grown  out 
of  them,  and  which  constitute  so  large  an  element  of  American 
patriotism,  perish  along  with  the  destruction  of  the  theory  of 
a  novel  and  august  combination  of  equal  States.  It  is  this 
theory  which  has  been  beautified  by  so  many  illustrations 
drawn  from  the  stars  of  the  sky,  governed  by  a  common  centre  ; 
the  billows,  distinct,  but  "one  as  the  sea;  "  the  noblest  and 
sublimest  images  of  nature.  It  is  this  theory  which  has  fur 
nished  so  many  themes  of  patriotic  eloquence  ;  which  has  so 
often  stirred  the  popular  heart  with  grand  imaginations ;  in 
which  the  orator  has  found  unfailing  sources  of  inspiration; 
which,  indeed,  has  occupied  the  most  of  whatever  there  is  of 
beauty  in  the  political  literature  of  America. 

It  is  remarkable  how  this  literature  has  been  devoted  to  the 
consecration  of  the  Union ;  how  it  abounds  in  paraphrases  of  it, 
as  a  singular  object  of  patriotic  adoration.  The  time  was, 
when  no  public  speaker  could  obtain  admiration,  without  some 
tribute  to  the  great  and  glorious  Union.  Poets  have  hymned 
its  praises.  The  earliest  essays  of  the  sophomore,  and  the  ma- 
turest  efforts  of  the  statesmen,  have  paid  tribute  to  it,  as  the 
supernal  work  of  our  political  fathers.  It  has  been  described 
as  the  last,  best  gift  of  government  to  man.  Those  who  made 
it  have  been  honoured  as  benefactors,  and  sometimes  invested 
with  a  superstitious  regard.  "  They,"  says  President  Johnson, 
"  obtained  a  higher  than  human  wisdom." 


DUTY    OF    THE    WHOLE    COUNTRY;  209 

The  first  impulse  is  to  reprove  these  excesses,  to  treat  them  as 
the  rhetorical  tumours  of  the  demagogue,  a  characteristic  extra 
vagance  of  the  hustings.  This,  indeed,  is  the  not  unusual  criti 
cism  of  sober  and  cultivated  minds.  Why  should  the  Union 
be  apotheosized  ? — why  should  it  not  be  spoken  of  in  plain, 
exact  language  ? — why  make  it  the  subject  of  rhetorical  dis 
plays  ?  These  are  the  thoughts  which  first  and  naturally  occur 
on  the  singular  exaltation  of  language  concerning  the  Union, 
so  remarkable  in  our  political  literature.  But  a  more  profound 
reflection  follows  these  first  impressions  ;  and  at  the  end  of  it, 
we  are  not  only  willing  to  tolerate  what  we  first  deemed  a 
rhetorical  extravagance  for  the  Union,  but  to  encourage  it  as 
one  of  the  most  valuable  demonstrations  of  patriotic  senti 
ment. 

The  great  want  of  our  government  is  an  element  of  rever 
ence.  The  tendency  of  a  harsh  and  excessive  modern  democra 
cy  is  to  reduce  government  to  the  aspect  of  a  mere  affair  of 
police.  Such  a  tendency  is  essentially  revolutionary,  produc 
tive  of  changes,  in  proportion  as  there  are  substituted  for  the 
fine  emotions  of  patriotism  the  caprices  of  selfishness,  or  the  cal 
culations  of  utility.  In  every  stable  government  we  naturally 
inquire  for  some  objects  of  reverential  regard,  some  moral  inspi 
ration,  some  sources  of  affection  through  which  men  love  their 
government,  rather  than  calculate  it  on  a  mere  system  of  debits 
and  credits.  We  are  profoundly  convinced  that  patriotism 
must  be  sentimental  to  a  degree,  to  be  true  patriotism.  The 
tendency  in  America,  sometimes  encouraged  by  a  most  false 
and  superficial  statesmanship,  is  to  divest  the  government  too 
much  of  sacred  and  reverential  regards.  The  processes  of  utili 
tarianism,  excellent  as  they  may  be  within  certain  limits,  must 
be  arrested  before  the  government  becomes,  in  popuUr  estims; 


210  DUTY    OP    THE   WHOLE    COUNTRY. 

tion,  a  mere  institution  of  police,  a  mere  convenience  of  public 
order.  In  America,  the  limited  extent  and  influence  of  our 
traditions,  the  absolute  divorce  of  the  Church  from  the  State, 
the  common  denudation  of  the  ceremonials  and  insignia  of  au 
thority,  have  brought  the  country  to  a  condition  where  the 
thoughtful  and  philosophic  mind  perceives  the  necessity  of 
some  element  of  reverence  in  the  government,  to  sustain  it  in 
the  affections  of  the  people,  and  to  inspire  a  patriotism  above 
the  mean  and  changeful  regards  of  selfishness. 

It  is  in  this  sense  that  we  find  the  supreme  value  of  a  ven 
eration  for  the  Union — the  supply  of  a  great  and  growing 
want  in  the  moral  economy  of  the  American  system  of  gov 
ernment.  The  patriotism  of  every  country  must  have  some 
great  rallying  cry.  As  we  have  elsewhere  said,  we  have  such, 
to  a  certain  extent,  in  the  names  of  our  political  ancestors,  in 
limited  traditions.  But  we  would  add  to  this  appeal  "  the 
Union  " — as  something  peculiarly  glorious  and  sacred  ;  pic 
turing,  as  nothing  else  can,  the  greatness  of  our  country ; 
sanctified  as  the  first  fruits  of  the  blood  of  the  Revolution  of 
76,  revered  even  as  the  product  of  a  wisdom  "higher  than 
human.  " 

There  may  be  an  extravagance  in  these  appeals,  when 
brought  to  severe  tests  of  logic  ;  but  no  nation  is  expected  to 
measure  its  patriotic  memories  by  the  cold  and  exact  rules  of 
history. 

We  have  traced  the  swift  and  decisive  steps  which  Consoli 
dation  has  taken  since  the  war.  We  have  followed  them,  in 
preceding  pages,  almost  to  the  destruction  of  the  Union.  We 
have  seen  the  establishment  of  military  rule  and  Negro  domi 
nation  in  the  South ;  the  attempt  to  clench  this  ruinous  policy 
on  so  large  a  part  of  the  country,  by  requiring  that  the  re- 


211  DUTY    OP    THE    WHOLE    COUNTRY. 

admitted  State  shall  never  change  the  organic  laws  under 
which  it  is  admitted — a  satire  and  mockery  of  "  republican 
ism  " — by  prostituting  the  Supreme  court,  and  compelling  it 
to  assume  the  constitutionality  of  all  the  acts  of  Reconstruc 
tion,  and,  at  last,  by  attacking  the  Executive  office,,  and 
attempting  to  reduce  it  to  a  condition  of  absolute  servility  to 
Congress. 

It  is  well  that  this  last  proceeding  should  be  understood  as 
part  of  this  general  design,  rather  than  as  a  mere  personal 
episode  in  the  history  of  an  Administration ;  and  that  the 
country  should  perceive  that  it  was  not  Andrew  Johnson  alone, 
who  lately  stood  at  the  bar  of  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  but  that  the  great  body  of  American  liberties  was  ar 
raigned  there,  and  the  tutelar  genius  of  the  Constitution 
insulted  and  disrobed  in  the  presence  of  a  shallow  and  titter 
ing  curiosity. 

Against  the  progress  of  Consolidation,  advancing  to  the 
overthrow  of  the  government  and  the  verge  of  destruction,  we 
have  urged  various  appeals,  not  one  of  which  is  exaggerated. 
We  have  appealed  to  the  interests  of  our  civilization ;  to  com 
munity  of  race  ;  to  whatever  is  dear  in  the  past,  or  hopeful  in 
the  future.  The  last  appeal  we  put  up  is  the  Unio?i — that 
for  which  the  war  was  fought,  and  which  for  three  generations 
has  symbolized  our  greatness,  and  assured  our  prosperity. 

The  Union  may  be  more  effectually  destroyed  by  Consoli 
dation  than  by  Secession.  The  first  is  far  more  odious,  and 
especially  in'  the  present  instance,  with  the  stripe  of  Negro 
government  in  it.  Far  better  that  the  States  should  disband 
into  petty  republics  still  preserving  their  institutions  of  local 
government,  than  pass  into  an  imperial  despotism,  disfigured, 
too,  by  Negro  rule.  It  is  thus  that  the  revolutionary  design 


212  DUTY   OF    THE   WHOLE   COUNTRY. 

of  Congress,  in  every  logical  respect,  exceeds  whatever  was 
claimed  of  evil  for  the  "  rebellion  "  of  1861,  and  forces  the 
country  to  an  issue,  of  which  the  past  war  was  only  a  partial 
and  imperfect  exposition.  The  imminent  danger  is  that  the 
country  has,  indeed,  been  brought  to  a  condition,  where  there  • 
is  no  longer  a  remedy  in  the  political  structure  itself,  where 
its  checks  and  balances  no  longer  operate,  as  they  were  de 
signed  in  the  Constitution ;  and  where  the  only  resource  is 
outside  of  it,  in  the  mass  of  the  people. 

It  is  said  that  the  people,  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  are 
gloomy  and  impassive.  There  is,  indeed,  a  popular  tameness 
which  is  the  forerunner  of  easy  and  successful  despotism,  when 
the  people  manifestly  quit  their  interest  in  political  affairs, 
and  the  mass  becomes  an  unresisting  prey  to  whatever  govern 
ment  alights  upon  it.  But  this,  we  firmly  believe,  is  not  the 
true  interpretation  of  whatever  quiet  there  may  be  in  the 
country  outside  of  the  circle  at  Washington.  There  is  a  quiet 
which  comes  from  the  consciousness  of  strength  ;  from  the  as 
surance  of  a  last,  supreme,  certain  resort ;  from  the  confidence 
of  perfect  ability  to  restore  what  has  been  lost,  and  to  appoint 
its  own  times  and  opportunities  of  action. 

This  perfect  ability  yet  resides  in  our  people  ;  and  the  op 
portunities  of  action  are  -yet  abundant.  The  people  are  still 
able  to  act,  having  not  yet  been  actually  fettered  ;  and  the 
condition  is  one  upon  which  public  opinion  may  operate  with 
unlimited  effect. 

"VVe  do  not  know  that  it  has  ever  been  observed  what  rare 
and  remarkable  power  public  opinion  has  in  America,  arising 
from  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  Union.  We  claim  it  as  the 
discovery  of  a  new  virtue  in  our  political  system.  It  is  the 
essential  design  of  Consolidation  and  Imperialism  to  keep 


DUTY   OF   THE   WHOLE   COUNTRY.  213 

public  opinion  diffuse  and  disorganized,  to  destroy  all  its 
centres  and  rallying  points,  and  thus  to  render  it  measurably 
incapable  of  action.  In  America,  the  value  of  our  State 
institutions  is,  that  they  maintain  vast  bodies  of  public  opinion 
ready  and  organized  at  any  moment  to  oppose  the  usurpations 
of  the  general  government.  It  is  an  inestimable  service  ;  and 
it  is  surprising  that  so  many  commentators  on  the  Union  have 
failed  to  perceive  this  greatest  of  its  virtues,  in  keeping  large 
and  independent  organizations  of  public  opinion  in  the  State 
Governments,  that  can  be  summoned  at  any  time  into  opera- 
tion,  having  their  own  machinery,  their  own  agents,  their  own 
military  establishments.  It  is  thus,  through  the  very  nature 
of  the  Union,  that  we  have  been  so  busy  to  describe,  that 
public  opinion  in  America  has  a  certainty  and  power  which 
it  has  nowhere  else  in  the  world.  In  European  countries,  the 
sentiment  of  the  people  is  seldom  ascertained ;  it  is  never 
known  ;  it  is  a  vague  and  diffuse  thing,  at  best ;  and  the  states 
man  who  asserts  it  is  listened  to  as  scarcely  more  than  the 
utterer  of  a  rhetorical  platitude,  incapable  of  proof.  But  in 
our  country,  and  especially  through  the  State  Government, 
public  opinion  may  not  only  be  more  certainly  known,  but  it 
is  a  power,  constantly  erect,  perfectly  organized,  that  can  be 
summoned  at  all  times  to  swift  and  decisive  issues. 

It  is  this  public  opinion,  already  organized  and  alert  in  all 
the  States — except  those  ridden  by  military  rule — and  growing 
out  of  the  very  nature  of  the  Union  which  it  is  invoked  to 
protect,  that  indicates  the  true  hope  of  the  country,  and 
contains  all  lost  causes  of  constitutional  liberty.  All  recom 
mendations  to  force  are  hasty  and  unnecessary,  in  view  of  the 
extraordinary  powers  of  this  opinion ;  and  there  are  no  grounds 
of  comparison  with  revolutionary  appeals  in  other  countries. 


214  DUTT   OP   THE   WHOLE    COUNTRY 

The  American  political  system  is  yet  competent  to  right 
itself,  without  the  violence  of  arms.  The  "  Lost  Cause  "  needs 
no  war  to  regain  it.  We  have  taken  up  new  hopes,  new  arms, 
new  methods — 

"  By  winning  words  to  conquer  willing  hearts, 
And  make  persuasion  do  the  work  of  fear/' 


THE  END. 


•9. 


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